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Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, 
Only a signal shewn, and a distant voice in the darkness ; 

So, on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, 

Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.” 


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SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 




I 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Facing Page 

“ The Great Pines,” iii 

“ In the Silent Snow-Forests,” ... 14 

“The Streams, Flowing on Reluctantly 

OVER Ice-Covered Rocks,” ... 23 

“He Loved the Snow-Girt Streams,” . . 39 

A Corner of the Village, .... 54 

“In the Snow Fairy-Land,” .... 62 
“On the Heights the Quaint ChAlets, Some 
Merely Huts for Storing Wood,” . . 71 

“ The Sloshy Streets of the Queer Little 

Village,” 86 

A Snowed-up Mill, 102 

“ The White Scenery Gives One a Great 

Sense of Sadness,” 118 

“On Others, Farms or the Homes of Peas- 
ants,” 134 

“ Around Vast Plains of Untouched Snow,” 150 
“The Melting of the Snows Had Begun,” . 167 

A Goat House, . 191 

A Stove, 206 


xvii 




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THE GREAT PINES 



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Ships that Pass 
in the Night 

BY 


BEATRICE HARRADEN ± 

u T 


AUTHOR OF 


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‘'In Varying Moods/’ “Hilda Strafford/’ j 

“The Fowler,” etc. j 

1 

IFiib Illustrations from Photographs by J 

GERTRUDE HARRADEN J 


I i^eh) iorft t 

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I Dodd, Mead and Company | 

I 1909 I 


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<3^ ^ Hi Hi Hi Hi H* * Hi Hi Hi Hi Hi Hi Hi H: H: Hi Hi Hi Hi ^ 



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✓ 


1 




I DEDICATE THIS NEW EDITION 
TO ALL MY 


FRIENDS IN AMERICA 



PREFACE TO AUTHORIZED AMERICAN 
EDITION. 


yHE words ‘‘ Ships that pass in the night,” 
etc., are to be found in Longfellow’s 
Tales of a Wayside Inn^ Third Evening, 
Theologian’s Second Tale (Elisabeth) Fourth 
Part. At the time when the book was 
written, I myself did not know where to 
discover these lines; and several of my 
friends searched in vain for them. Numer- 
ous letters of inquiry were sent to me by all 
sorts and conditions of people, and I confess 
it was somewhat mortifying to have to plead 
ignorance. At last, one friend, more heroic 
than the others, found the harbour where 
these ships were hiding ; and it was my wish 


IZ 


X 


PREFACE. 


that the new editions of the book, which 
were following each other with surprising 
quickness, should contain the welcome in- 
telligence. But my English publisher^ felt 
differently ; and I could, therefore, only put 
the reference into the papers, and patiently 
continue to answer letters from perplexed 
seekers. 

It was suggested to me some weeks ago 
when I was in England, that I should write 
a few words of preface to the authorized 
American edition. I felt at first that I had 
really nothing to say, and I therefore hesi- 
tated. But now, being in America, in the 
midst of my friends, who are mostly strangers 
to me but my friends for all that, there is 
some fear of the preface becoming longer 
than the book itself if I once begin to record 
the many kind words of welcome and the 
many gratifying expressions of appreciation 
and sympathy which have fallen to my 
share. 


PREFACE. 


XI 


So I will only linger now to say how 
grateful I am, and how much I hope that I 
myself may not prove to be merely a ship 
that has passed in the night.’* 







Tuckahoe, New York, 
May i4ih, i8g4. 


4 


/ 


m 


PREFACE TO NEW EDITION. 


I T is now seven years since this little book 
found its way from England to America 
and won for me so many friends and so 
much good-will. Soon after its appearance 
in England I had occasion to go to Cali- 
fornia to visit some old friends who had 
settled on a ranch, and I shall never forget 
how astonished I was on landing at New 
York to find that Ships that Pass in the 
Night” was enjoying in that far-off world 
the same kind of success as that which our 
beloved old England had granted it from 
the beginning. 

It was all the more astonishing to me 
because I had never expected that the book 
would make any mark at all. I trusted 

ziii 


xiv PREFACE TO NEW EDITION. 

that a publisher might be found to bring it 
out, and that a few people might care to 
read it ; but higher than this my hopes 
never dared to soar. I little knew what 
other joys it had in store for me besides the 
joy of writing it. It brought me the best 
gifts which life has to offer; generous ap- 
preciation, good-fellowship, friendship, and 
love, and a genial freemasonry with all sorts 
and conditions of men and women in many 
parts of the world. 

I am glad to have the chance now of giv- 
ing expression to these feelings, which have 
been in my heart for years. 

The illustrations are from photographs, 
by my sister, of the country surroundings 
where the story was supposed to take 
place. 

Beatrice Harraden. 


Hampstead, June sj. 


CONTENTS. 


PART I. 

CHAPTBR PAGB 

I. — A New-Comer i 

II. — Which Contains a Few Details , , 5 

III. — Mrs. Reffold Learns her Lesson . , 10 

IV. — Concerning WArli and Marie , , 21 

V. — The Disagreeable Man .... 26 

VI. — The Traveller and the Temple of 

Knowledge 36 

VII. — Bernardine 42 

VIII. — The Story Moves on at Last. . . 53 

IX. — Bernardine Preaches .... 61 

X. — The Disagreeable Man is Seen in a 

New Light 71 

XI. — “ If One has Made the One Great 

Sacrifice ” 94 

XII. — The Disagreeable Man Makes a Loan . 105 

XIII. — A Domestic Scene 122 

XIV. — Concerning the Caretakers . . .137 


XV 


XVI 


CONTENTS. 


CKAPTKK PAGB 

XV.— Which Contains Nothing . • . 146 

XVI.— When the Soul Knows its own Re- 
morse . 160 

XVII. — A Return to Old Pastures . . .163 

XVIII. — A Betrothal 184 

XIX. — Ships that Speak each other in Pass- 
ing 190 

XX. — A Love-Letter 198 

PART II. 

I. — The Dusting of the Books . . . 207 

II. — Bernardine Begins her Book . . . 218 

III. — Failure and Success : a Prologue . . 220 

rv. — The Disagreeable Man Gives up his Free- 
dom 224 

V. — The Building of the Bridge , . . 233 


Ships that Pass in the Night. 

PART 1. 


CHAPTER I. 


A NEW-COMER. 



ES, indeed,” remarked one of the guests at 


the English table, “ yes, indeed, we start 
life thinking that we shall build a great cathe- 
dral, a crowning glory to architecture, and we 
end by contriving a mud hut.” 

“ I am glad you think so well of human 
nature,” said the Disagreeable Man, suddenly 
looking up from the newspaper which he always 
read during meal-time. “ I should be more in- 
clined to say that we end by being content to 
dig a hole, and get into it, like the earth men.” 


3 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


A silence followed these words ; the English 
community at that end of the table was struck 
with astonishment at hearing the Disagreeable 
Man speak. The few sentences he had spoken 
during the last four years at Petershof were on 
record ; this was decidedly the longest of them 
all. 

He is going to speak again,” whispered 
beautiful Mrs. Reffold to her neighbour. 

The Disagreeable Man once more looked up 
from his newspaper. 

“ Please pass me the Yorkshire relish,” he 
said in his rough way to a girl sitting next to 
him. 

The spell was broken, and the conversation 
started afresh. But the girl who had passed 
the Yorkshire relish sat silent and listless, her 
food untouched, and her wine untasted. She 
was small and thin ; her face looked haggard. 
She was a new-comer, and had, indeed, arrived 
at Petershof only two hours before the table- 
d*h6te bell rang. But there did not seem to 
be any nervbus shrinking in her manner, nor 


0 ' 


A NEW-COMER. 


S 


any shyness at having to face the two hundred 
and fifty guests of the Kurhaus. She seemed 
rather to be unaware of their presence ; or, if 
aware of, certainly indifferent to, the scrutiny 
under which she was being placed. She was 
recalled to reality by the voice of the Disagree- 
able Man. She did not hear what he said, but 
she mechanically stretched out her hand and 
passed him the mustard-pot. 

“ Is that what you asked for ? ” she said half 
dreamily ; “ or was it the water-bottle ? 

*‘You are rather deaf, I should think," said 
the Disagreeable Man placidly. “ I only re- 
marKed that it was a pity you were not eating 
your dinner. Perhaps the scrutiny of the two 
hundred and fifty guests in this civilized place 
is a vexation to you." 

“ I did not know they were scrutinizing," she 
answered ; “ and even if they are, what does it 
matter to me ? I am sure I am quite too tired 
to care." 

** Why have you come here ? " asked the Dis» 
agreeable Man suddenly. 


4 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 

“ Probably for the same reason as yourself/ 
she said ; “ to get better or well.” 

** You won’t get better,” he answered cruelly ; 
** I know your type well ; you bum yourselves 
out quickly. And — my God — how I envy 
you ! ” 

“ So you have pronounced my doom,” she 
said, looking at him intently. Then she 
laughed ; but there was no merriment in the 
laughter. 

Listen,” she said, as she bent nearer to 
him ; ** because you are hopeless, it does not 
follow that you should try to make others hope- 
less too. You have drunk deep of the cup of 
poison ; I can see that. To hand the cup on to 
others is the part of a coward.” 

She walked past the English table, and the 
Polish table, and so out of the Kurhaus dining- 
hall 


CHAPTER II. 


CONTAINS A FEW DETAILS. 

JN an old second-hand bookshop in London, 
an old man sat reading Gibbon’s History of 
Rome. He did not put down his book when the 
postman brought him a letter. He just glanced 
indifferently at the letter, and impatiently at 
the postman. Zerviah Holme did not like to be 
interrupted when he was reading Gibbon ; and 
as he was always reading Gibbon, an interrup- 
tion was always regarded by him as an insult 
About two hours afterwards, he opened the 
letter, and learnt that his niece, Bernardine, 
had arrived safely in Petershof, and that she 
intended to get better and come home strong. 
He tore up the letter, and instinctively turned to 
the photograph on the mantelpiece. It was the 
picture of a face young and yet old, sad and 


6 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


yet with possibilities of merriment, thin and 
drawn and almost wrinkled, and with piercing 
eyes which, even in the dull lifelessness of the 
photograph, seemed to be burning themselves 
away. Not a pleasing nor a good face ; yet 
intensely pathetic because of its undisguised 
harassment. 

Zerviah looked at it for a moment. 

“ She has never been much to either of us,” 
he said to himself. “ And yet, when Malvina 
was alive, I used to think that she was hard on 
Bernardine. I believe I said so once or twice. 
But Malvina had her own way of looking at 
things. Well, that is over now.” 

He then, with characteristic speed, dismissed 
all thoughts which did not relate to Roman 
history ; and the remembrance of Malvina, his 
wife, and Bernardine, his niece, took up an ac- 
customed position in the background of his mind. 

Bernardine had suffered a cheerless child- 
hood in which dolls and toys took no leading 
part. She had no affection to bestow on any 
doll, nor any woolly lamb, nor apparently on 


CONTAINS A FEW EE TAILS. 


7 


any human person ; unless, perhaps, there was 
the possibility of a friendly inclination towards 
Uncle Zerviah, who would not have understood 
the value of any deeper feeling, and did not 
therefore call the child cold-hearted and un- 
responsive, as he might well have done. 

This she certainly was, judged by the standard 
of other children ; but then no softening influ- 
ences had been at work during her tenderest 
years. Aunt Malvina knew as much about sym- 
pathy as she did about the properties of an 
ellipse ; and even the fairies had failed to win 
little Bernardine. At first they tried with lov- 
ing patience what they might do for her ; they 
came out of their books, and danced and sang 
to her, and whispered sweet stories to her, at 
twilight, the fairies’ own time. But she would 
have none of them, for all their gentle persua- 
sion. So they gave up trying to please her, and 
left her, as they had found her, loveless. What 
can be said of a childhood which even the fairies 
have failed to touch with the warm glow of 
affection ? 


8 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


Such a little restless spirit, striving to express 
itself now in this direction, now in that ; yet 
always actuated by the same constant force, the 
desire for work. Bernardine seemed to have no 
special wish to be useful to others ; she seemed 
just to have a natural tendency to work, even as 
others have a natural tendency to play. She 
was always in earnest ; life for little Bernardine 
meant something serious. 

Then the years went by. She grew up and 
filled her life with many interests and ambitions. 
She was at least a worker, if nothing else ; she 
had always been a diligent scholar, and now she 
took her place as an able teacher. She was 
self-reliant, and, perhaps, somewhat conceited. 
But, at least, Bernardine the young woman had 
learnt something which Bernardine the young 
child had not been able to learn ; she learnt 
how to smile. It took her about six and twenty 
years to learn ; still, some people take longer 
than that ; in fact, many never learn. This is a 
brief summary of Bernardine Holme’s past. 

Then, one day, when she was in the full swing 


CONTAINS A FEW DETAILS. 


9 


of her many engrossing occupations : teaching, 
writing articles for newspapers, attending social- 
istic meetings, and taking part in political dis- 
cussions — she was essentially a “ modern pro- 
duct," this Bernardine — one day she fell ill. 
She lingered in London for some time, and then 
she went to Petershof. 


CHAPTER HI. 


MRS. REFFOLD LEARNS HER LESSON. 

jpETERSHOF was a winter resort for coiv 
sumptive patients, though, indeed, many 
people who simply needed the change of a 
bracing climate went there to spend a few 
months ; and came away wonderfully better for 
the mountain air. This is what Bernardine 
Holme hoped to do ; she was broken down in 
every way, but it was thought that a prolonged 
stay in Petershof might help her back to a 
reasonable amount of health, or, at least, prevent 
her from slipping into further decline. She had 
come alone, because she had no relations except 
that old uncle, and no money to pay any friend 
who might have been willing to come with her. 
But she probably cared very little, and the 

morning after her arrival, she strolled out by 
10 


MRS. REFFOLD LEARNS HER LESSON, ii 


herself, investigating the place where she was 
about to spend six months. She was dragging 
herself along, when she met the Disagreeable 
Man. She stopped him. He was not accus- 
turned to be stopped by any one, and he looked 
rather astonished. 

You were not very cheering last night,” she 
said to him. 

“ I believe I am not generally considered to 
be lively,” he answered, as he knocked the snow 
off his boot. 

Still, I am sorry I spoke to you as I did,” 
she went on frankly. ‘‘ It was foolish of me to 
mind what you said.” 

He made no reference to his own remark, and 
was passing on his way again, when he turned 
back and walked with her. 

I have been here nearly seven years,” he 
said, and there was a ring of sadness in his 
voice as he spoke, which he immediately cor- 
rected. “ If you want to know anything about 
the place, I can tell you. If you are able to 
walk, I can show you some lovely spots, where 


13 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


you will not be bothered with people. I can 
take you to a snow fairy- land. If you are sad 
and disappointed, you will find shining comfort 
there. It is not all sadness in Petershof. In 
the silent snow forests, if you dig the snow away, 
you will find the tiny buds nestling in their 
white nursery. If the sun does not dazzle your 
eyes, you may always see the great mountains 
piercing the sky. These wonders have been a 
happiness to me. You are not too ill but that 
they may be a happiness to you also.’* 

“ Nothing can be much of a happiness to me,” 
she said, half to herself, and her lips quivered. 
** I have had to give up so much : all my work, 
all my ambitions.” 

** You are not the only one who has had to do 
that,” he said sharply. “ Why make a fuss ? 
Things arrange themselves, and eventually we 
adjust ourselves to the new arrangement. A 
great deal of caring and grieving, phase one ; 
still more caring and grieving, phase two ; less 
caring and grieving, phase three ; no further 
feeling whatsoever, phase four. Mercifully I 


MRS, REFFOLD LEARNS HER LESSON, 13 

am at phase four. You are at phase one. Make 
a quick journey over the stages." 

He turned and left her, and she strolled 
along, thinking of his words, wondering how 
long it would take her to arrive at his indiffer- 
ence. She had always looked upon indifference 
as paralysis of the soul, and paralysis meant 
death, nay, was worse than death. And here 
was this man, who had obviously suffered both 
mentally and physically, telling her that the 
only sensible course was to learn not to care. 
How could she learn not to care ? All her life 
long she had studied and worked and cultivated 
herself in every direction in the hope of being 
able to take a high place in literature, or, in any 
case, to do something in life distinctly better 
than what other people did. When everything 
was coming near to her grasp, when there 
seemed a fair chance of realizing her ambitions, 
she had suddenly fallen ill, broken up so entirely 
in every way, that those who knew her when she 
was well, could scarcely recognize her now that 
she was ill. The doctors spoke of an overstrained 


14 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


nervous system : the pestilence of these moderii 
days ; they spoke of rest, change of work and 
scene, bracing air. She might regain her vitality ; 
she might not. Those who had played them- 
selves out must pay the penalty. She was think- 
ing of her whole history, pitying herself 
profoundly, coming to the conclusion, after 
true human fashion, that she was the worst-used 
person on earth, and that no one but herself 
knew what disappointed ambitions were ; she 
was thinking of all this, and looking profoundly 
miserable and martyr-like, when some one called 
her by her name. She looked round and saw one 
of the English ladies belonging to the Kurhaus ; 
Bernardine had noticed her the previous night, 
she seemed in capital spirits, and had three or 
four admirers waiting on her very words. She 
was a tall, handsome woman, dressed in a superb 
fur-trimmed cloak, a woman of splendid bearing 
and address. Bernardine looked a contemptible 
little piece of humanity beside her. Some such 
impression conveyed itself to the two men who 
were walking with Mrs. Reffold. They looked 



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IN THE SILENT SNOW-FORESTS 


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MRS. REFFOLD LEARNS HER LESSON, 15 

at the one woman, and then at the other, and 
smiled at each other, as men do smile on such 
occasions. 

“ I am going to speak to this little thing,” 
Mrs. Reffold had said to her two companions 
before they came near Bernardine. “ I must 
find out who she is, and where she comes from. 
And, fancy, she has come quite alone. I have 
inquired. How hopelessly out of fashion she 
dresses. And what a hat ! ” 

I should not take the trouble to speak to 
her,” said one of the men. “ She may fasten her- 
self on to you. You know what a bore that is.” 

Oh, I can easily snub any one if I wish,” 
replied Mrs. Reffold, rather disdainfully. 

So she hastened up to Bernardine, and held 
out her well-gloved hand. 

“ I had not a chance of speaking to you last 
night, Miss Holme,” she said. “You retired 
so early. I hope you have rested after your 
journey. You seemed quite worn out.” 

“ Thank you,” said Bernardine, looking ad- 
miringly at the beautiful woman, and envying 


t6 SHIPS THAT PASS IH THE NIGHT, 


her, just as all plain women envy their hand* 
some sisters. 

** You are not alone, I suppose ? ” continued 
Mrs. Reffold. 

Yes, quite alone,” answered Bernardine. 

** But you are evidently acquainted with Mr. 
Allitsen, your neighbour at table,” said Mrs. 
Reffold ; “ so you will not feel quite lonely here. 
It is a great advantage to have a friend at a place 
like this.” 

“I never saw him before last night,” said 
Bernardine. 

“ Is it possible ? ” said Mrs. Reffold, in her 
pleasantest voice. ** Then you have made a 
triumph of the Disagreeable Man. He very 
rarely deigns to talk with any of us. He does 
not even appear to see us. He sits quietly and 
reads. It would be interesting to hear what his 
conversation is like. I should be quite amused 
to know what you did talk about.” 

“ I dare say you would,” said Bernardine 
quietly. 

Then Mrs. Reffold, wishing to screen her in- 


MRS. REFFOLD LEARNS HER LESSON. 17 

quisitiveness, plunged into a description of 
Petershof life, speaking enthusiastically about 
everything, except the scenery which she did 
not mention. After a time she ventured to 
begin once more taking soundings. But some- 
how or other, those bright eyes of Bernardiney 
which looked at her so searchingly, made her a 
little nervous, and, perhaps, a little indiscreet. 

“Your father will miss you,” she said ten- 
tatively. 

“ I should think probably not,” answered 
Bernardine. “ One is not easily missed, you 
know.” There was a twinkle in Bernardine’s 
eye as she added, “ He is probably occupied 
with other things.” 

“ What is your father ? ” asked Mrs. Reffold, 
in her most coaxing tones. 

“ I don’t know what he is now,” answered 
Bernardine placidly. ‘‘But he was a genius. 
He is dead.” 

Mrs. Reffold gave a slight start, for she began 
to feel that this insignificant little person was 
making fun of her. This would never do, and 


I8 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

before witnesses too. So she gathered together 
her best resources and said : 

** Dear me, how very unfortunate : a genius 
too. Death is indeed cruel. And here one sees 
so much of it, that unless one learns to steel one’s 
heart, one becomes melancholy. Ah, it is indeed 
sad to see all this suffering ! ” (Mrs. Reffold 
herself had quite succeeded in steeling her heart 
against her own invalid husband.) She then 
gave an account of several bad cases of consump- 
tion, not forgetting to mention two instances of 
suicide which had lately taken place in Petershof. 

“ One gentleman was a Russian,” she said. 
“ Fancy coming all the way from Russia to this 
little out-of-the-world place ! But people come 
from the uttermost ends of the earth, though of 
course there are many Londoners here. I sup- 
pose you are from London ? ” 

“ I am not living in London now,” said Ber. 
nardine cautiously. 

“ But you know it, without doubt,” continued 
Mrs. Reffold. “ There are several Kensington 
people here. You may meet some friends ; in* 


MRS. REFFOLD LEARNS HER LESSON. 19 

deed in our hotel there are two or three families 
from Lexham Gardens.” 

Bemardine smiled alittle viciously ; looked first 
at Mrs- Reff old’s two companions with an amused 
sort of indulgence, and then at the lady herself. 

She paused a moment and then said : 

“ Have you asked all the questions you wish 
to ask ? And, if so, may I ask one of you ? 
Where does one get the best tea ?” 

Mrs. Reffold gave an inward gasp, but pointed 
gracefully to a small confectionery shop on the 
other side of the road. Mrs. Reffold did every- 
thing gracefully. 

Bemardine thanked her, crossed the road, and 
passed into the shop. 

“Now I have taught her a lesson not to inter- 
fere with me,” said Bemardine to herself. “ How 
beautiful she is.” 

Mrs. Reffold and her two companions went 
silently on their way. At last the silence was 
broken. 

“ Well, I ’m blessed I ” said the taller of the 
two, lighting a cigar. 


so SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


** So am I," said the other, lighting his cigar 
too. 

“Those are precisely my own feelings.” re- 
marked Mrs. Reffold. 

But she had learnt her lesson. 


CHAPTER IV. 

CONCERNING WARLI AND MARIE. 

^^ARLI, the little hunchback postman, ft 
cheery soul, came whistling up the Kur- 
haus stairs, carrying with him that precious 
parcel of registered letters, which gave him the 
position of being the most important person in 
Petershof. He was a linguist, too, was Warli, 
and could speak broken English in a most fasci- 
nating way, agreeable to every one, but intelli- 
gible only to himself. Well, he came whistling 
up the stairs, when he heard Marie’s blithe voice 
humming her favourite spinning-song. 

“ Ei, ei ! ” he said to himself ; “ Marie is in a 
good temper to-day. I will give her a call as I 
pass.” 

He arranged his neckerchief and smoothed 
his curls ; and when he reached the end of the 
landing, he paused outside a little glass-door, 


22 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


and, all unobserved, watched Marie in her 
pantry cleaning the candlesticks and lamps. 

Marie heard a knock, and, looking up from 
her work, saw Warli. 

‘‘ Good day, Warli,” she said, glancing hur- 
riedly at a tiny broken mirror suspended on the 
wall. “ I suppose you have a letter for me. 
How delightful ! ** 

“ Never mind about the letter just now,” he 
said, waving his hand as though wishing to dis- 
miss the subject. “ How nice to hear you 
singing so sweetly, Marie ! Dear me, in the 
old days at Grusch, how often I have heard 
that song of the spinning-wheels. You have 
forgotten the old days, Marie, though you re- 
member the song.” 

“ Give me my letter, Warli, and go about 
your work,” said Marie, pretending to be im- 
patient. But all the same her eyes looked 
extremely friendly. There was something very 
winning about the hunchback’s face. 

“ Ah, ah ! Marie,” he said, shaking his curly 
head ; “ I know how it is with you ; you only 










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“THE STREAMS FLOWING RELUCTANTLY OVER ICE-COATED 

ROCKS.” 





CONCERNING WARLI AND MARIE, 23 

like people in fine binding. They have not 
always fine hearts.” 

“ What nonsense you talk, Warli ! *’ said 
Marie. ** There, just hand me the oil-can. You 
can fill this lamp for me. Not too full, you 
goose ! And this one also ; ah, you *re letting 
the oil trickle down ! Why, you *re not fit for 
anything except carrying letters ! Here, give 
me my letter.” 

“ What pretty flowers,” said Warli. “ Now 
if there is one thing I do like, it is a flower. 
Can you spare me one, Marie ! Put one in my 
button-hole, do ! ” 

“You are a nuisance this afternoon,” said 
Marie, smiling and pinning a flower on Warli’s 
blue coat. Just then a bell rang violently. 

“ Those Portuguese ladies will drive me quite 
mad,” said Marie. “ They always ring just when 
I am enjoying myself.” 

“ When you are enjoying yourself ! ” said 
Warli triumphantly. 

“ Of course,*’ returned Marie ; “I always do 
enjoy cleaning the oil-lamps ; I always did ! ” 


24 smps THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


“ Ah, I ’d forgotten the oil-lamps ! ” said 
Warli. 

“ And so had I ! ” laughed Marie. “ Na, na, 
there goes that bell again ! Won’t they be 
angry ! Won’t they scold at me ! Here, Warli, 
give me my letter, and I ’ll be off.” 

" I never told you I had any letter for you,” 
remarked Warli. “ It was entirely your own 
idea. Good afternoon, Fraulein Marie.” 

The Portuguese ladies’ bell rang again, still 
more passionately this time ; but Marie did not 
seem to hear nor care. She wished to be re- 
venged on that impudent postman. She went to 
the top of the stairs and called after Warli in 
her most coaxing tones : 

** Do step down one moment ; I want to show 
you something ! ” 

“ I must deliver the registered letters,” said 
Warli, with official haughtiness. “ I have already 
wasted too much of my time.” 

“ Won’t you waste a few more minutes on 
me ? ” pleaded Marie pathetically. ** It is not 
often I see you now.” 


CONCERNING WARLI AND MARIE, 2$ 


Warli came down again, looking very happy. 

** I want to show you such a beautiful photo- 
graph I *ve had taken,” said Marie. ** Ach, it is 
beautiful ! ” 

“You must give one to me,” said Warli 
eagerly. 

“ Oh, I can't do that,” replied Marie, as she 
opened the drawer and took out a small packet. 
“ It was a present to me from the Polish gentle- 
man himself. He saw me the other day here in 
the pantry. I was so tired, and I had fallen 
asleep, with my broom, just as you see me here. 
So he made a photograph of me. He admires 
me very much. Is n’t it nice ? and is n’t the 
Polish gentleman clever ? and is n’t it nice to 
have so much attention paid to one? Oh, 
there ’s that horrid bell again ! Good afternoon, 
Herr Warli. That is all I have to say to you, 
thank you.” 

Warli’s feelings towards the Polish gentlemaa 
were not of the friendliest that day. 


CHAPTER V. 


THE DISAGREEABLE MAN. 

D OBERT ALLITSEN told Bernardine that 
she was not likely to be on friendly terms 
with the English people in the Kurhaus. 

“ They will not care about you, and you will 
not care about the foreigners. So you will thus 
be thrown on your own resources, just as I was, 
when I came.’* 

I cannot say that I have any resources,” 
Bernardine answered. “ I don’t feel well 
enough to try to do any writing, or else it 
would be delightful to have the uninterrupted 
leisure.” 

So she had probably told him a little about 
her life and occupation ; although it was not 
likely that she would have given him any serious 
confidences. Still, people are often surprisingly 


THE DISAGREEABLE MAH, 


27 


frank about themselves, even those who pride 
themselves upon being the most reticent mortals 
in the world. 

But now, having the leisure,'’ she continued, 
“ I have not the brains.” 

** I never knew any writer who had,” said the 
Disagreeable Man grimly. 

“ Perhaps your experience has been limited,” 
she suggested. 

“ Why don’t you read ? ” he said. “ There is 
a good library here. It contains all the books 
we don’t want to read.” 

“ I am tired of reading,” Bernardine said. 
** I seem to have been reading all my life. My 
uncle, with whom I live, keeps a second-hand 
book-shop, and ever since I can remember, I 
have been surrounded by books. They have 
not done me much good, nor any one else 
either.” 

“ No, probably not,” he said. “But now that 
you have left off reading, you will have a chance 
of learning something, if you live long enough. 
It is wonderful how much one does learn when 


tS SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


one does not read. It is almost awful. If you 
don’t care about reading now, why do you not 
occupy yourself with cheese-mites ? ” 

I do not feel drawn towards cheese-mites.” 
“ Perhaps not, at first ; but all the same they 
form a subject which is very engaging. Or any 
branch of bacteriology.” 

“ Well, if you were to lend me a microscope, 
perhaps I might begin.” 

“ I could not do that,” he answered quickly. 
•*1 never lend my things.” 

No, I did not suppose you would,” she said. 
“ I knew I was safe in making the suggestion.” 

** You are rather quick of perception in spite 
of all your book reading,” he said. “ Yes, you 
are quite right. I am selfish. I dislike lending 
my things, and I dislike spending my money ex- 
cept on myself. If you have the misfortune to 
linger on as I do, you will know that it is per- 
fectly legitimate to be selfish in small things, if 
one has made the one great sacrificed 
“ And what may that be ? ” 

She asked so eagerly that he looked at hei^ 


THE DISAGREEABLE MAH. 


29 


and then saw how worn and tired her face was ; 
and the words which he was intending to speak, 
died on his lips. 

** Look at those asses of people on tobog- 
gans,” he said brusquely. “ Could you manage 
to enjoy yourself in that way ? That might do 
you good.” 

“Yes,” she said ; “but it would not be any 
pleasure to me.” 

She stopped to watch the toboggans flying 
down the road. And the Disagreeable Man 
went his own solitary way, a forlorn figure, with 
a face almost expressionless, and a manner 
wholly impenetrable. 

He had lived nearly seven years at Petershof, 
and, like many others, was obliged to continue 
staying there if he wished to continue staying 
on this planet. It was not probable that he had 
any wish to prolong his frail existence, but he 
did his duty to his mother by conserving his 
life ; and this feeble flame of duty and affection 
was the only lingering bit of warmth in a heart 
frozen almost by ill-health and disappointed 


30 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

, ^ 

ambitions. The moralists tell us that suffering 
ennobles, and that a right acceptation of hin- 
drances goes towards forming a beautiful char- 
acter. But this result must largely depend on, 
the original character : certainly, in the case of 
Robert Allitsen, suffering had not ennobled his 
mind, nor disappointment sweetened his disposi- 
tion. His title of “ Disagreeable Man ” had 
been fairly earned, and he hugged it to himself 
with a triumphant secret satisfaction. 

There were some people in Petershof who 
were inclined to believe certain absurd rumours 
about his alleged kindness. It was said that on 
more than one occasion he had nursed the suf- 
fering and the dying in sad Petershof, and, with 
all the sorrowful tenderness worthy of a loving 
mother, had helped them to take their leave of 
life. But these were only rumours, and there 
was nothing in Robert Allitsen’s ordinary bear- 
ing to justify such talk. So the foolish people 
who, for the sake of making themselves peculiar, 
revived these unlikely fictions, were speedily 
ridiculed and reduced to silence. And the 


THE DISAGREEABLE MAN, 


31 


Disagreeable Man remained the Disagreeable 
Man, with a clean record for unamiability. 

He lived a life apart from others. Most of 
his time was occupied in photography, or in the 
use and study of the microscope, or in chemis- 
try. His photographs were considered to be 
most beautiful. Not that he showed them 
specially to any one ; but he generally sent a 
specimen of his work to the Monthly Photograph 
Portfolio, and hence it was that people learned 
to know of his skill. He might be seen any fine 
day trudging along in company with his photo- 
graphic apparatus, and a desolate dog, who 
looked almost as cheerless as his chosen com- 
rade. Neither the one took any notice of the 
other ; Allitsen was no more genial to the dog 
than he was to the Kurhaus guests ; the dog 
was no more demonstrative to Robert Allitsen 
than he was to any one in Petershof. 

Still, they were “ something *’ to each other : 
that unexplainable something ” which has to 
explain almost every kind of attachment. 

He had no friends in Petershof, and appa- 


32 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


rently had no friends anywhere. No one wrote 
to him, except his old mother ; the papers which 
were sent to him came from a stationer’s. 

He read all during meal-time. But now and 
again he spoke a few words with Bemardine 
Holme, whose place was next to him. It never 
occurred to him to say good morning, nor to 
give a greeting of any kind, nor to show a 
courtesy. One day during lunch, however, he 
did take the trouble to stoop and pick up Ber- 
nardine Holme’s shawl, which had fallen for the 
third time to the ground. 

“ I never saw a female wear a shawl more 
carelessly than you,” he said. “ You don’t seem 
to know anything about it.” 

His manner was always gruff. Every one 
complained of him. Every one always had 
complained of him. He had never been heard 
to laugh. Once or twice he had been seen to 
smile on occasions when people talked confi- 
dently of recovering their health. It was a 
beautiful smile worthy of a better cause. It 
was a smile which made one pause to wondci 


THE DISAGREEABLE MAN. 


33 


what could have been the original disposition 
of the Disagreeable Man before ill-health had 
cut him off from the affairs of active life. Was 
he happy or unhappy ? It was not known. He 
gave no sign of either the one state or the other. 
He always looked very ill, but he did not seem 
to get worse. He had never been known to 
make the faintest allusion to his own health. 
He never ‘‘ smoked ” his thermometer in 
public ; and this was the more remarkable in 
an hotel where people would even leave off a 
conversation and say : Excuse me, Sir or 

Madam, I must now take my temperature. We 
will resume the topic in a few minutes.** 

He never lent any papers or books ; and he 
never borrowed any. 

He had a room at the top of the hotel, and 
he lived his life, amongst his chemistry bottles, 
his scientific books, his microscope, and his 
camera. He never sat in any of the hotel 
drawing-rooms. There was nothing striking 
nor eccentric about his appearance. He was 
neither ugly nor good-looking, neither tall nor 


34 SHIPS THAT PASS IH THE NIGHT. 


short, neither fair nor dark. He was thin and 
frail, and rather bent. But that might be the 
description of any one in Petershof. There was 
nothing pathetic about him, no suggestion even 
of poetry, which gives a reverence to suffering, 
whether mental or physical. As there was no 
expression on his face, so also there was no ex- 
pression in his eyes : no distant longing, no far- 
off fixedness ; nothing, indeed, to awaken sad 
sympathy. 

The only positive thing about him was his 
rudeness. Was it natural or cultivated ? No 
one in Petershof could say. He had always 
been as he was ; and there was no reason to 
suppose that he would ever be different. 

He was, in fact, like the glacier of which he 
had such a fine view from his room ; like the 
glacier, an unchanging feature of the neigh- 
bourhood. 

No one loved it better than the Disagreeable 
Man did ; he watched the sunlight on it, now 
pale golden, now fiery red. He loved the sky, 
the dull grey, or the bright blue. He loved the 


TIfE DISAGREEABLE MAN, 


3S 


snow forests, and the snow- girt streams, and the 
ice cathedrals, and the great firs patient beneath 
their snow-burden. He loved the frozen water- 
falls, and the costly diamonds in the snow. He 
knew, too, where the flowers nestled in their 
white nursery. He was, indeed, an authority 
on Alpine botany. The same tender hands 
which plucked the flowers in the spring-time, 
dissected them and laid them bare beneath the 
microscope. But he did not love them the less 
for that. 

Were these pursuits a comfort to him ? Did 
they help him to forget that there was a time 
when he, too, was burning with ambition to dis- 
tinguish himself, and be one of the marked men 
of the age ? 

Who could say ? 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE TRAVELLER AND THE TEMPLE OF 
KNOWLEDGE. 



OUNTLESS ages ago a Traveller, much 


worn with journeying, climbed the last bit 
of rough road which led to the summit of a 
high mountain. There was a temple on that 
mountain. And the Traveller had vowed that 
he would reach it before death prevented him. 
He knew the journey was long, and the road 
rough. He knew that the mountain was the 
most difficult of ascent of that mountain chain, 
called ‘‘ The Ideals.’* But he had a strongly- 
hoping heart and a sure foot. He lost all 
sense of time, but he never lost the feeling of 


hope. 


** Even if I faint by the way-side,” he said to 
himself, ** and am not able to reach the summit, 


THE TRAVELLER. 


37 


Still it is something to be on the road which 
leads to the High Ideals.’* 

That was how he comforted himself when he 
was weary. He never lost more hope than 
that ; and surely that was little enough. 

And now he had reached the temple. 

He rang the bell and an old white-haired 
man opened the gate. He smiled sadly when 
he saw the Traveller. 

“ And yet another one” he murmured. What 

does it all mean ? ” 

The Traveller did not hear what he mur- 
mured. 

“ Old white-haired man,” he said, ** tell me ; 
and so I have come at last to the wonderful 
Temple of Knowledge. I have been journey- 
ing hither all my life. Ah, but it is hard work 
climbing up to the Ideals.” 

The old man touched the Traveller on the 
arm. “ Listen,” he said gently. This is not 
the Temple of Knowledge. And the Ideals are 
not. a chain of mountains ; they are a stretch of 
plains, and the Temple of Knowledge is in their 


38 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 

centre. You. have come the wrong road. Alaa^ 
poor Traveller ! ” 

The light in the Traveller’s eyes had faded. 
The hope in his heart died. And he became old 
and withered. He leaned heavily on his staff. 

** Can one rest here ? ” he asked wearily. 

“ No.” 

“ Is there a way down the other side of these 
mountains ? ” 

‘‘ No.” 

** What are these mountains called ? ” 

“They have no name.” 

“And the temple — how do you call the 
temple ? ” 

“ It has no name." 

“Then I call it the Temple of Broken 
Hearts,” said the Traveller. 

And he turned and went. But the old white- 
haired man followed him. 

“ Brother,” he said, “ you are not the first to 
come here, but you may be the last. Go back 
to the plains, and tell the dwellers in the plains 
that the Temple of True Knowledge is in 




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HE LOVED THE SNOW-GIRT STREAMS 



THE TRAVELLER. 


39 


their very midst ; any one may enter it who 
chooses ; the gates are not even closed. The 
Temple has always been in the plains, in the 
very heart of life, and work, and daily effort. 
The philosopher may enter, the stone-breaker 
may enter. You must have passed it every day 
of your life ; a plain, venerable building, unlike 
our glorious cathedrals.’* 

“ I have seen the children playing near it,** 
said the Traveller. ** When I was a child I used 
to play there. Ah, if I had only known ! Well, 
the past is the past.’* 

He would have rested against a huge stone, 
but that the old white-haired man prevented 
him. 

“ Do not rest,” he said. “ If you once rest 
there you wiH not rise again. When you once 
rest, you will know how weary you are.” 

“ I have no wish to go farther,” said the 
Traveller. ** My journey is done ; it may have 
been in the wrong direction, but still it is done.” 

Nay, do not linger here,” urged the old 
man. “ Retrace your steps. Though you are 


40 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

broken-hearted yourself, you may save others 
from breaking their hearts. Those whom you 
meet on this road, you can turn back. Those 
who are but starting in this direction you can 
bid pause and consider how mad it is to suppose 
that the Temple of True Knowledge should 
have been built on an isolated and dangerous 
mountain. Tell them that although God seems 
hard. He is not as hard as all that. Tell them 
that the Ideals are not a mountain range, but 
their own plains, where their great cities are 
built, and where the corn grows, and where men 
and women are toiling, sometimes in sorrow and 
sometimes in joy.” 

“ I will go,” said the Traveller. 

And he started. 

But he had grown old and weary. And the 
journey was long ; and the retracing of one’s 
steps is more tiresome than the tracing of them. 
The ascent, with all the vigour and hope of life 
to help him, had been difficult enough ; the de- 
scent, with no vigour and no hope to help hin^ 
was almost impossible. 


THE TRAVELLER. 


41 


So that it was not probable that the, Traveller 
lived to reach the plains. But whether he 
reached them or not, still he had started. 

And not many Travellers do that. 


CHAPTER VIL 


BERNARDINE. 

'^HE crisp mountain air and the warm sun- 
shine began slowly to have their effect on 
Bernardine, in spite of the Disagreeable Man's 
verdict. She still looked singularly lifeless, and 
appeared to drag herself about with painful ef- 
fort ; but the place suited her, and she enjoyed 
sitting in the sun listening to the music which was 
played by a scratchy string band. Some of the 
Kurhaus guests, seeing that she was alone and 
ailing, made some attempt to be kindly to her. 
She always seemed astonished that people 
should concern themselves about her ; whatever 
her faults were, it never struck her that she 
might be of any importance to others, however 
important she might be to herself. She was 
grateful for any little kindness which was shewn 


BERNARDINE, 


43 


her ; but at first she kept very much to herself, 
talking chiefly with the Disagreeable Man, who, 
by the way, had surprised every one — but no 
one more than himself — by his unwonted be- 
haviour in bestowing even a fraction of his 
companionship on a Petershof human being. 

There was a great deal of curiosity about her, 
but no one ventured to question her since Mrs. 
Reffold’s defeat. Mrs. Reffold herself rather 
avoided her, having always a vague suspicion 
that Bernardine tried to make fun of her. But 
whether out of perversity or not, Bernardine 
never would be avoided by her, never let her 
pass by without a few words of conversation, 
and always went to her for information, much 
to the amusement of Mrs. Reffold’s faithful at- 
tendants. There was always a twinkle in Ber- 
nardine’s eye when she spoke with Mrs. Reffold. 
She never fastened herself on to any one ; no 
one could say she intruded. As time went on, 
there was a vague sort of feeling that she did not 
intrude enough. She was ready to speak if any 
one cared to speak with her, but she never be- 


44 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


gan a conversation except with Mrs. Reffold, 
When people did talk to her, they found her 
genial. Then the sad face would smile kindly, 
and the sad eyes speak kind sympathy. Or some 
bit of fun would flash forth, and a peal of young 
laughter ring out. It seemed strange that such 
fun could come from her. 

Those who noticed her, said she appeared al- 
ways to be thinking. 

She was thinking and learning. 

Some few remarks roughly made by the Dis- 
agreeable Man had impressed her deeply. 

“You have come to a new world,’* he said, 
“ the world of suffering. You are in a fury be- 
cause your career has been checked, and because 
you have been put on the shelf ; you, of all 
people. Now you will learn how many quite as 
able as yourself, and abler, have been put on the 
shelf too, and have to stay there. You are only 
a pupil in suffering. What about the professors ? 
If your wonderful wisdom has left you with any 
sense at all, look about you and learn.” 

So she was looking, and thinking, and learn- 


BERNARDINE, 


45 


ing. And as the days went by, perhaps a softer 
light came into her eyes. 

All her life long her standard of judging peo- 
ple had been an intellectual standard, or an 
artistic standard : what people had done with 
outward and visible signs ; how far they had 
contributed to thought ; how far they had influ- 
enced any great movement, or originated it ; 
how much of a benefit they had been to their 
century or their country ; how much social or 
political activity, how much educational energy 
they had devoted to the pressing need of the 
times. 

She was undoubtedly a clever, cultured young 
woman ; the great work of her life had been 
self-culture. To know and understand, she had 
spared neither herself nor any one else. To 
know, and to use her acquired knowledge intel- 
lectually as teacher and, perhaps, too, as writer, 
had been the great aim of her life. Everything 
that furthered this aim won her instant atten- 
tion. It never struck her that she was selfish. 
One does not think of that until the great check 


46 SIfIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


comes. One goes on, and would go on. But a 
barrier rises up. Then, finding one can advance 
no farther, one turns round ; and what does one 
see ? 

Bernardine saw that she had come a long 
journey. She saw what the Traveller saw. That 
was all she saw at first. Then she remembered 
that she had done the journey entirely for her 
own sake. Perhaps it might not have looked 
so dreary if it had been undertaken for some 
one else. 

She had claimed nothing of any one ; she had 
given nothing to any one. She had simply 
taken her life in her own hands and made what 
she could of it. What had she made of it ? 

Many women asked for riches, for position, 
for influence and authority and admiration. 
She had only asked to be able to work. It 
seemed little enough to ask. That she asked so 
little placed her, so she thought, apart from the 
common herd of eager askers. To be cut off 
from active life and earnest work was a possi- 
bility which never occurred to her. 


BERNARDINE, 


47 


It never crossed her mind that in asking for 
the one thing for which she longed, she was 
really asking for the greatest thing. Now, in 
the hour of her enfeeblement, and in the hour 
of the bitterness of her heart, she still prided 
herself upon wanting so little. 

It seems so little to ask,” she cried to her- 
self time after time. “ I only want to be able to 
do a few strokes of work. I would be content 
now to do so little, if only I might do some. 
The laziest day-labourer on the road would 
laugh at the small amount of work which would 
content me now.” 

She told the Disagreeable Man that one 
day. 

‘‘ So you think you are moderate in your de- 
mands,” he said to her. “ You are a most 
amusing young woman. You are so perfectly 
unconscious how exacting you really are. For, 
after all, what is it you want? You want to 
have that wonderful brain of yours restored, so 
that you may begin to teach, and, perhaps, write 
a book. Well, to repeat my former words ; you 


48 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


are still at phase one, and you are longing to be 
strong enough to fulfil your ambitions and write 
a book. When you arrive at phase four, you 
will be quite content to dust one of your uncle’s 
books instead : far more useful work and far 
more worthy of encouragement. If every one 
who wrote books now would be satisfied to dust 
books already written, what a regenerated world 
it would become ! ” 

She laughed good-temperedly. His remarks 
did not vex her ; or, at least, she showed no 
vexation. He seemed to have constituted him- 
self as her critic, and she made no objections. 
She had given him little bits of stray confidence 
about herself, and she received everything he 
had to say with that kind of forbearance which 
chivalry bids us show to the weak and ailing. 
She made allowances for him ; but she did more 
than that for him : she did not let him see that 
she made allowances. Moreover, she recognized 
amidst all his roughness a certain kind of sym- 
pathy which she could not resent, because it 
was not aggressive. For to som? natures the 


BERNARDINE. 


49 


expression of sympathy is an irritation ; to be 
sympathized with means to be pitied, and to be 
pitied means to be looked down upon. She was 
sorry for him, but she would not have told him 
so for worlds ; he would have shrunk from pity 
as much as she did. And yet the sympathy 
which she thought she did not want for herself, 
she was silently giving to those around her, like 
herself, thwarted, each in a different way per- 
haps, still thwarted all the same. 

She found more than once that she was learn- 
ing to measure people by a standard different 
from her former one ; not by what they had 
done or been^ but by what they had suffered. But 
such a change as this does not come suddenly, 
though, in a place like Petershof, it comes quick- 
ly, almost unconsciously. 

She became immensely interested in some of 
the guests ; and there were curious types in the 
Kurhaus. The foreigners attracted her chiefly ; 
a little Parisian danseuse, none too quiet in hei 
manner, won Bernardino’s fancy. 

“ I so want to get better, chirie^* she said tc 


50 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 

Bernardine. “ Life is so bright. Death : ah, 
how the very thought makes one shiver ! That 
horrid doctor says I must not skate ; it is not 
wise. When was I wise ? Wise people don’t 
enjoy themselves. And I have enjoyed myself, 
and will still.” 

‘‘How can you go about with that little 
danseuse ? ” the Disagreeable Man said to Ber- 
nardine one day. “ Do you know who she is ? ” 

“Yes,” said Bernardine ; “she is the lady who 
thinks you must be a very ill-bred person be- 
cause you stalk into meals with your hands in 
your pockets. She wondered how I could bring 
myself to speak to you.” 

“ I dare say many people wonder at that,” said 
Robert Allitsen rather peevishly. ‘ 

“ Oh no,” replied Bernardine ; “ they wonder 
lhat you talk to me. They think I must either 
be very clever or else very disagreeable.” 

“I should not call you clever,” said Robert 
Allitsen grimly. 

“ No,” answered Bernardine pensively. “ But 
I always did think myself clever until I came 


BERNARDINE, 


51 


here. Now I am beginning to know better. 
But it is rather a shock, is n’t it "i ’* 

‘ I have never experienced the shock,” he said. 
“ Then you still think you are clever ? ” she 
asked. 

There is only one man my intellectual equal 
in Petershof, and he is not here any more,” he 
said gravely. “Now I come to remember, he 
died. That is the worst of making friendships 
here ; people die.” 

“ Still, it is something to be left king of the 
intellectual world,” said Bernardine, “ I never 
thought of you in that light.” 

There was a sly smile about her lips as she 
spoke, and there was the ghost of a smile on the 
Disagreeable Man’s face. 

“ Why do you talk with that horrid Swede ? ” 
he said suddenly. “ He is a wretched low for- 
eigner. Have you heard some of his views ? ” 

“ Some of them,” answered Bernardine cheer- 
fully. “ One of his views is really amusing ; 
that it is very rude of you to read the newspaper 
during meal-time ; and he asks if it is an English 


52 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NISHT. 


custom. I tell him it depends entirely on the 
Englishman, and the Englishman’s neighbour ! ” 

So she too had her raps at him, but always in 
the kindest way. 

He had a curious effect on her. His very bit- 
terness seemed to check in its growth her own 
bitterness. The cup of poison of which he him- 
self had drunk deep, he passed on to her. She 
drank of it, and it did not poison her. She was 
morbid, and she needed cheerful companionship. 
His dismal companionship and his hard way of 
looking at life ought by rights to have oppressed 
her. Instead of which she became less sorrow- 
ful.’ 

Was the Disagreeable Man, perhaps, a reader 
of character ? Did he know how to help her in 
his own grim gruff way ? He himself had suf* 
fared so much ; perhaps he did know. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


THE STORY MOVES ON AT LAST. 

^ERNARDINE was playing chess one day 
with the Swedish Professor. On the Kur- 
haus terrace the guests were sunning themselves, 
warmly wrapped up to protect themselves from 
the cold, and well provided with parasols to 
protect themselves from the glare. Some were 
reading, some were playing cards or Russian 
dominoes, and others were doing nothing. There 
was a good deal of fun, and a great deal of 
screaming amongst the Portuguese colony. The 
little danseuse and three gentlemen acquaint- 
ances were drinking coffee, and not behaving 
too quietly. Pretty Fraulein Muller was leaning 
over her balcony carrying on a conversation with 
a picturesque Spanish youth below. Most of 
the English party had gone sledging and tobog- 


54 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

ganing. Mrs. Reffold had asked Bernardine to 
join them, but she had refused. Mrs. Reffold’s 
friends were anything but attractive to Bernar- 
dine, although she liked Mrs. Reffold herself 
immensely. There was no special reason why 
she should like her ; she certainly had no cause 
to admire her every-day behaviour, nor her 
neglect of her invalid husband, who was passing 
away, uncared for in the present, and not likely 
to be mourned for in the future. Mrs. Reffold 
was gay, careless,, and beautiful. She under- 
stood nothing about nursing, and cared less. So 
a trained nurse looked after Mr. Reffold, and 
Mrs. Reffold went sledging. 

“ Dear Wilfrid is so unselfish,’’ she said. “ He 
will not have me stay at home. But I feel very 
selfish.” That was her stock remark. Most 
people answered her by saying : “ Oh no, Mrs. 

Reffold, don’t say that.” But when she made 
the remark to Bernardine, and expected the 
usual reply, Bernardine said instead : 

Mr. Reffold seems lonely.” 

“ Oh, he has a trained nurse, and she can read 










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THE STORY MOVES ON AT LAST, 55 

to him,” said Mrs. Reffold hurriedly. She seemed 
ruffled. 

“I had a trained nurse once,” replied Ber- 
nardine ; ** and she could read ; but she would 
not. She said it hurt her throat.” 

^^Dear me, how very unfortunate for you,” 
said Mrs. Reffold. “ Ah, there is Captain 
Graham calling. I must not keep the sledges 
waiting.” 

That was a few days ago, but to-day, when 
Bernardine was playing chess with the Swedish 
Professor, Mrs. Reffold came to her. There 
was a curious mixture of shyness and abandon 
in Mrs. Relfold’s manner. 

“ Miss Holme,” she said, I have thought of 
such a splendid idea. Will you go and see Mr. 
Reffold this afternoon ? That would be a nice 
little change for him.” 

Bernardine smiled. 

“ If you wish it,” she answered. 

Mrs. Reffold nodded and hastened away, and 
Bernardine continued her game, and, having 
finished it, rose to go. 


56 S^lPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 

The Reffolds were rich, and lived in a suite 
of apartments in the more luxurious part of the 
Kurhaus. Bernardine knocked at the door, and 
the nurse came to open it. 

“ Mrs. Reffold asks me to visit Mr. Reffold,’* 
Bernardine said ; and the nurse showed her into 
the pleasant sitting-room. 

Mr. Reffold was lying on the sofa. He looked 
up as Bernardine came in, and a smile of pleasure 
spread over his wan face. 

I don’t know whether I intrude,” said Ber- 
nardine ; “ but Mrs. Reffold said I might come 
to see you.” 

Mr. Reffold signed to the nurse to withdraw. 

She had never before spoken to him. She 
had often seen him lying by himself in the 
sunshine. 

Are you paid for coming to me ? ” he asked 
eagerly. 

The words seemed rude enough, but there 
was no rudeness in the manner. 

No, I am not paid,” she said gently ; and 
then she took a chair and sat near him. 


THE STORY MOVES OH AT LAST. 57 

" Ah, that 's well ! he said, with a sigh of 
relief. “ I 'm so tired of paid service. To know 
that things are done for me because a certain 
amount of francs are given so that those things 
may be done — well, one gets weary of it ; that *s 
all ! 

There was bitterness in every word he spoke. 
“ I lie here,” he said, “ and the loneliness of it—' 
the loneliness of it ! ” 

“ Shall I read to you ? ” she asked kindly. She 
did not know what to say to him. 

“ I want to talk first,” he replied. “ I want 
to talk first to some one who is not paid for 
talking to me. I have often watched you, and 
wondered who you were. Why do you look so 
sad ? No one is waiting for you to die ? ” 

‘‘ Don’t talk like that ! ” she said ; and she 
bent over him and arranged the cushions for 
him more comfortably. He looked just like a 
great lank tired child. 

** Are you one of my wife’s friends ? ” he 
asked. 

I don’t suppose I am,” she answered gently ; 


58 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 

“ but I like her, all the same. Indeed, I like her 
very much. And I think her beautiful.” 

“ Ah, she is beautiful ! ” he said eagerly, 
“ Does n’t she look splendid in her furs ? By 
Jove, you are right ! She is a beautiful woman, 
I am proud of her.” 

Then the smile faded from his face. 

“Beautiful,” he said half to himself, “but hard.” 

“ Come now,” said Bernardine ; “ you are sur- 
rounded with books and newspapers. What shall 
I read to you ? ” 

“No one reads what I want,” he answered 
peevishly. “ My tastes are not their tastes. I 
don’t suppose you would care to read what I 
want to hear.” 

“ Well,” she said cheerily, “ try me. Make 
your choice.” 

“ Very well, the Sporting and Dramatic^* he 
said. “ Read every word of that. And about 
that theatrical divorce case. And every word of 
that too. Don’t you skip, and cheat me.” 

She laughed and settled herself down to amuse 
him. And he listened contentedly. 


THE STORY MOVES OH AT LAST. _ 59 

“ That is something like literature,’* he said 
once or twice. “I can understand papers of 
that sort going like wild-fire.” 

When he was tired of being read to, she 
talked to him in a manner that would have aston- 
ished the Disagreeable Man : not of books, nor 
learning, but of people she had met and of 
places she had seen ; and there was fun in every- 
thing she said. She knew London well, and 
she could tell him about the Jewish and the 
Chinese quarters, and about her adventures in 
company with a man who took her here, there, 
and everywhere. 

She made him some tea, and she cheered the 
poor fellow as he had not been cheered for 
months. 

“You ’re just a little brick ! ” he said, when 
she was leaving. Then once more he added 
eagerly : 

“ And you ’re not to be paid, are you ? ” 

“ Not a single sou / ” she laughed. “ What a 
strange idea of yours ! ” 

“ You are not offended ? ” he said anxiously. 


6o SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


“ But you can’t think what a difference it makes 
to me. You are not offended ? ” 

Not in the least ! ” she answered. “ I know 
quite well how you mean it. You want a little 
kindness with nothing at the back of it. Now, 
good-bye ! ’’ 

He called her when she was outside the door, 
“ I say, will you come again soon ? ” 

“ Yes, I will come to-morrow.” 

“ Do you know you 've been a little brick. I 
hope I have n’t tired you. You are only a bit 
of a thing yourself. But, by Jove, you know 
how to put a fellow in a good temper ! ” 

When Mrs. Reffold went down to table-cThdit 
that night, she met Bernardine on the stairs, 
and stopped to speak with her. 

“We ’ve had a splendid afternoon,” she said ; 
“ and we ’ve arranged to go again to-morrow af 
the same time. Such a pity you don’t come I 
Oh, by the way, thank you for going to see my 
husband. I hope he did not tire you. He is a 
little querulous, I think. He so enjoyed your visit 
Poor fellow ! it is sad to see him so ill, is n’t it ? ” 


CHAPTER IX. 


BERNARDINE PREACHES. 

^I^FTER this, scarcely a day passed but Ber- 
nardine went to see Mr. Reffold. The 
most inexperienced eye could have known that 
he was becoming rapidly worse. Marie, the 
chambermaid, knew it, and spoke of it frequently 
to Bernardine. 

** The poor lonely fellow ! ” she said, time 
after time. 

Every one, except Mrs. Reffold, seemed to 
recognize that Mr. Reffold’s days were num- 
bered. Either she did not or would not under- 
stand. She made no alteration in the disposal 
of her time : sledging parties and skating picnics 
were the order of the day ; she was thoroughly 
pleased with herself, and received the atten- 
tions of her admirers as a matter of oourse. 

6i 


62 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


The Petershof climate had got into her head ; 
and it is a well-known fact that this glorious air 
has the effect on some people of banishing from 
their minds all inconvenient notions of duty and 
devotion, and all memory of the special object 
of their sojourn in Petershof. The coolness and 
calmness with which such people ignore their 
responsibilities, or allow strangers to assume 
them, would be an occasion for humour, if it 
were not an opportunity for indignation ; though 
indeed it would take a very exceptionally sober- 
minded spectator not to get some fun out of the 
blissful self-satisfaction and unconsciousness 
which characterize the most negligent of “ care- 
takers.” 

Mrs. Reffold was not the only sinner in this 
respect. It would have been interesting to get 
together a tea-party of invalids alone, and set 
the ball rolling about the respective behaviours 
of their respective friends. Not a pleasing 
chronicle : no very choice pages to"^dd to the 
book of real life ; still, valuable items in their 
way, representative of the actual as opposed to 



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BERNARDINE PREA HES. 


63 


the ideal. In most instances there would have 
been ample testimony to that cruel monster 
known as Neglect. 

Bernardine spoke once to the Disagreeable 
Man on this subject. She spoke with indigna- 
tion, and he answered with indifference, shrug- 
ging his shoulders. 

“ These things occur,” he said. “ It is not 
that they are worse here than everywhere else ; 
it is simply that they are together in an ac- 
cumulated mass, and, as such, strike us with 
tremendous force. I myself am accustomed to 
these exhibitions of selfishness and neglect. I 
should be astonished if they did not take place. 
Don’t mix yourself up with anything. If people 
are neglected, they are neglected, and there is 
the end of it. To imagine that you or I are 
going to do any good by filling up the breach, is 
simply an insanity leading to unnecessarily dis- 
agreeable consequences. I know you go to 
see Mr. Reffold. Take my advice, and keep 
away.” 

You speak like a Calvinist,” she answered 


64 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 

rather ruffled, “with the quintessence of self- 
protectiveness ; and I don’t believe you mean a 
word you say.” 

“ My dear young woman,” he said, “ we are 
not living in a poetry book bound with gilt 
edges. We are living in a paper-backed volume 
of prose. Be sensible. Don’t ruffle yourself on 
account of other people. Don’t even trouble to 
criticize them ; it is only a nuisance to yourself. 
All this simply points back to my first sugges- 
tion : fill up your time with some hobby, 
cheese-mites or the influenza bacillus, and then 
you will be quite content to let people be neg- 
lected, lonely, and to die. You will look upon 
it as an ordinary and natural process.” 

She waved her hand as though to stop him. 

“ There are days,” she said, “ when I can’t 
bear to talk with you. And this is one of 
them.” 

“ I am sorry,” he answered, quite gently foi 
him. And he moved away from her, and started 
for his usual lonely walk. 

Bernardine turned home, intending to go to 


BEJ^NARDINE PEE A CUES, 


65 


see Mr. Reffold. He had become quite at- 
tached to her, and looked forward eagerly to her 
visits. He said her voice was gentle and her 
manner quiet ; there was no bustling vitality 
about her to irritate his worn nerves. He was 
probably an empty-headed, stupid fellow ; but 
it was none the less sad to see him passing 
away. 

He called her “ Little Brick.” He said that 
no other epithet suited her so exactly. He was 
quite satisfied now that she was not paid for 
coming to see him. As for the reading, no one 
could read the Sporting and Dramatic News 
and the Era so well as ’ Little Brick. Some- 
times he spoke with her about his wife, but 
only in general terms of bitterness, and not 
always complainingly. She listened, and said 
nothing. 

“I’m a chap that wants very little,” he said 
once. “ Those who want little, get nothing.” 

That was all he said, but Bernardine knew to 
whom he referred. 

To-day, as Bernardine was on her way back 

s 


66 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


to the Kurhaus, she was thinking constantly of 
Mrs. Reffold, and wondering whether she ought 
to be made to realize that her husband was be- 
coming rapidly worse. Whilst engrossed with 
this thought, a long train of sledges and tobog- 
gans passed her. The sound of the bells and 
the noisy merriment made her look up, and she 
saw beautiful Mrs. Reffold amongst the pleasure- 
seekers. 

“ If only I dared tell her now,” said Bernar- 
dine to herself, “ loudly and before them all.” 

Then a more sensible mood came over her. 

“ After all, it is not my affair,” she said. 

And the sledges passed away out of hearing. 

When Bernardine sat with Mr. Reffold that 
afternoon she did not mention that she had seen 
his wife. He coughed a great deal, and seemed 
to be worse than usual, and complained of fever. 
But he liked to have her, and would not hear of 
her going. 

“ Stay,” he said. It is not much of a 
pleasure to you, but it is a great pleasure to 


me. 


BERNARDINE PREACHES. 


67 


There was an anxious look on his face, such 
a look as people wear when they wish to ask 
some question of great moment, but dare not 
begin. 

At last he seemed to summon up courage. 

“ Little Brick,” he said, in a weak, low voice, 
“I have something on my mind. You won’t 
laugh, I know. You ’re not the sort. I know 
you ’re clever and thoughtful, and all that ; you 
could tell me more than all the parsons put to- 
gether. I know you ’re clever ; my wife says so. 
She says only a very clever woman would wear 
such boots and hats.” 

Bernardine smiled. 

*‘Well,” she said kindly, ‘‘tell me.” 

“You must have thought a good deal, I sup- 
pose,” he continued, “ about life and death, and 
that sort of thing. I ’ve never thought at all. 
Does it matter. Little Brick ? It ’s too late now, 
I can’t begin to think. But speak to me ; tell 
me what you think. Do you believe we get 
another chance, and are glad to behave less like 
curs and brutes? Or is it all ended in that 


68 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

lonely little churchyard here ? I Ve never trou* 
bled about these things before, but now I know 
I am so near that gloomy little churchyard — 
well, it makes me wonder. As for the Bible, I 
never cared to read it. I was never much of a 
reader, though I 've got through two or three 
firework novels and sporting stories. Does it 
matter. Little Brick ? ” 

** How do I know ? ” she said gently. “ How 
does any one know ? People say they know ; 
but it is all a great mystery — nothing but a 
mystery. Everything that we say, can be but a 
guess. People have gone mad over their guess- 
ing, or they have broken their hearts. But still 
the mystery remains, and we cannot solve it.** 

If you don*t know anything. Little Brick,** 
he said, “ at least tell me what you think : and 
don*t be too learned ; remember I *m only a 
brainless fellow.** 

He seemed to be waiting eagerly for her 
answer. 

“If I were you,” she said, “I should not 
worry. Just make up your mind to do better 


BERNARDINE PREACHES. 


69 


when you get another chance. can’t do 

more than that. That is what I shall think of : 
that God will give each of us another chance, 
and that each one of us will take it and do 
better — I and you and every one. So there is 
no need to fret over failure, when one hopes 
one may be allowed to redeem that failure later 
on. Besides which, life is very hard. Why, we 
ourselves recognize that. If there be a God, 
some intelligence greater than human intelli- 
gence, he will understand better than ourselves 
that life is very hard and difficult, and he will 
be astonished not because we are not better^ but 
because we are not worse. At least, that would 
be my notion of a God. I should not worry if 
I were you. Just make up your mind to do 
better if you get the chance, and be content 
with that.” 

“ If that is what you think, Little Brick,” he 
answered, “ it is quite good enough for me. 
And it does not matter about prayers and the 
Bible, and all that sort of thing ? ” 

“ I don’t think it matters,” she said. I never 


70 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

have thought such things mattered. What does 
matter, is to judge gently, and not to come 
down like a sledge-hammer on other people’s 
failings. Who are we, any of us, that we should 
be hard on others ? ” 

“ And not come down like a sledge-hammer 
on other people’s failings,” he repeated slowly. 
“ I wonder if I have ever judged gently.” 

I believe you have,” she answered. 

He shook his head. 

No,” he said ; I have been a paltry fellow. 
I have been lying here, and elsewhere too, eat- 
ing my heart away with bitterness, until you 
came. Since then I have sometimes forgotten 
to feel bitter. A little kindness does away with 
a great deal of bitterness.” 

He turned wearily on his side. 

“ I think I could sleep. Little Brick,” he said, 
almost in a whisper. “ I want to dream about 
your sermon. And I ’m not to worry, am I ? ” 

“ No,” she answered, as she stepped noise- 
lessly across the room ; “ you are not to worry.** 














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‘ ON THE HEIGHTS THE (QUAINT CHALETS, SOME MEKELY HUTS EOE STOEING WOOD, 



CHAPTER X. 


THE DISAGREEABLE MAN IS SEEN IN A NEW 
LIGHT. 

specially fine morning a knock came at 
Bernardine’s door. She opened it, and 
found Robert Allitsen standing there trying to 
recover his breath. 

“ I am going to Loschwitz, a village about 
twelve miles off,” he said. “ And I have ordered 
a sledge. Do you care to come too ? ” 

“ If I may pay my share,” she said. 

“ Of course,” he answered ; “ I did not suppose 
you would like to be paid for any better than I 
should like to pay for you.” 

Bernardine laughed. 

“ When do we start ? ” she asked. 

“ Now,” he answered. “ Bring a rug, and 
also that shawl of yours which is always falling 
down, and come at once without any fuss. We 


72 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


shall be out for the whole day. What about 
Mrs. Grundy? We could manage to take her 
if you wished, but she would not be comfortable 
sitting amongst the photographic apparatus, and 
I certainly should not give up my seat to her.’* 

‘‘ Then leave her at home,” said Bernardine 
cheerily. 

And so they settled it. 

In less than a quarter of an hour they had 
started ; and Bernardine leaned luxuriously 
back to enjoy to the full her first sledge-ride. 

It was all new to her : the swift passing 
through the crisp air without any sensation of 
motion ; the sleepy tinkling of the bells on the 
horses’ heads ; the noiseless cutting through of 
the snow-path. 

All these weeks she had known nothing of 
the country, and now she found herself in the 
snow fairy-land of which the Disagreeable Man 
had often spoken to her. Around vast plains 
of untouched snow, whiter than any dream of 
whiteness, jewelled by the sunshine with price- 
less diamonds, numberless as the sands of the 


DISAGREEABLE MAN IN A NEW LIGHT, 73 

sea. The great pines bearing their burden of 
snow patiently ; others less patient, having 
shaken themselves free from what the heavens 
had sent them to bear. And now the streams, 
flowing on reluctantly over ice-coated rocks, and 
the ice cathedrals formed by the icicles between 
the rocks. 

And always the same silence, save for the 
tinkling of the horses’ bells. 

On the heights the quaint chalets, some 
merely huts for storing wood ; on others, farms, 
or the homes of peasants ; some dark brown, 
almost black, betraying their age ; others of a 
paler hue, showing that the sun had not yet 
mellowed them into a deep rich colour. And 
on all alike, the fringe of icicles. A wonderful 
white world. 

It was a long time before Bernardine even 
wished to speak. This beautiful whiteness may 
become monotonous after a time, but there is 
something very awe-inspiring about it, some- 
thing which catches the soul and holds it. 

The Disagreeable Man sat quietly by her side. 


74 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


Once or twice he bent forward to protect the 
camera when the sledge gave a lurch. 

After some time they met a procession of 
sledges laden with timber ; and August, the 
driver, and Robert Allitsen exchanged some 
fun and merriment with the drivers in their 
quaint blue smocks. The noise of the conver- 
sation, and the excitement of getting past the 
sledges, brought Bernardine back to speech 
again. 

‘‘I have never before enjoyed anything so 
much,” she said. 

So you have found your tongue,” he said. 
“ Do you mind talking a little now ? I feel 
rather lonely.” 

This was said in such a pathetic, aggrieved 
tone, that Bernardine laughed and looked at her 
companion. His face wore an unusually bright 
expression. He was evidently out to enjoy 
himself. 

“ You talk,” she said ; “ and tell me all about 
the country.” 

And he told her what he knew, and, amongst 


DISAGREEABLE MAN IN A NEW LIGHT, 75 

Other things, about the avalanches. He was 
able to point out where some had fallen the 
previous year. He stopped in the middle of his 
conversation to tell her to put up her umbrella. 

“ I can't trouble to hold it for you,” he said ; 
‘‘but I don’t mind opening it. The sun is 
blazing to-day, and you will get your eyes bad 
if you are not careful. That would be a pity, 
for you seem to me rather better lately.” 

“ What a confession for you to make of any 
one ! ” said she. 

“ Oh, I don’t mean to say that you will ever 
get well,” he added grimly. “ You seem to have 
pulled yourself in too many directions for that. 
You have tried to be too alive ; and now you 
are obliged to join the genus cabbage.” 

“ I am certainly less ill than I was when I 
first came,” she said ; “ and I feel in a better 
frame of mind altogether. I am learning a 
good deal in sad Petershof.” 

“ That is more than I have done,” he 
answered. 

“ Well, perhaps you teach instead,’* she said. 


76 smps THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


“ You have taught me several things. Now, go 
on telling me about the country people. You 
like them ? ” 

“ I love them,’* he said simply. ** I know 
them well, and they know me. You see I have 
been in this district so long now, and have 
walked about so much, that the very wood- 
cutters know me ; and the drivers give me lifts 
on their piles of timber.” 

“ You are not surly with the poor people, 
then ? ” said Bernardine ; ** though I must say I 
cannot imagine you being genial. Were you 
ever genial, I wonder?” 

“ I don’t think that has ever been laid to my 
charge,” he answered. 

The time passed away pleasantly. The Dis- 
agreeable Man was scarcely himself to-day ; or 
was it that he was more like himself? He 
seemed in a boyish mood ; he made fun out of 
nothing, and laughed with such young fresh 
laughter, that even August, the grave blue- 
spectacled driver, was moved to mirth. As for 
Bernardine, she had to look at Robert Allitsen 


DISAGREEABLE MAN IN A NEW LIGHT, 77 

several times to be sure that he was the same 
Robert Allitsen she had known two hours ago 
in Petershof. But she made no remark, and 
showed no surprise, but met his merriness half 
way. No one could be a cheerier companion 
than herself when she chose. 

At last they arrived at Loschwitz. The sledge 
wound its way through the sloshy streets of the 
queer little village, and finally drew up in front 
of the Gasthaus. It was a black sunburnt chalet, 
with green shutters, and steps leading up to a 
green balcony. A fringe of sausages hung from 
the roof ; red bedding was scorching in the sun- 
shine ; three cats were sunning themselves on 
the steps ; a young woman sat in the green 
balcony knitting. There were some curious in- 
scriptions on the walls of the chalet, and the 
date was distinctly marked, ** 1670.** 

An old woman over the way sat in her door- 
way spinning. She looked up as the sledge 
stopped before the Gasthaus ; but the young 
woman in the green balcony went on knitting, 
and saw nothing. 


78 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


A buxom elderly Hausfrau came out to greet 
the guests. She wore a naturally kind expres- 
sion on her old face, but when she saw who the 
gentleman was, the kindness positive increased 
to kindness superlative. 

She first retired and called out : 

** Liza, Fritz, Liza, Trudchen, come quickly ! ” 

Then she came back, and cried : 

“ Herr Allitsen, what a surprise ! ’* 

She shook his hand times without number, 
greeted Bernardine with motherly tenderness, 
and interspersed all her remarks with frantic 
cries of “ Liza, Fritz, Trudchen, make haste ! 

She became very hot and excited, and 
gesticulated violently. 

All this time the young woman sat knitting, 
but not looking up. She had been beautiful, 
but her face was worn now, and her eyes had that 
vacant stare which betokened the vacant mind. 

The mother whispered to Robert Allitsen : 

“ She notices no one now ; she sits there 
always waiting.” 

Tears came into the kind old eyes. 


DISAGREEABLE MAN IN A NEW LIGHT. 79 

Robert Allitsen went and bent down to the 
young woman, and held out his hand. 

“ Catharina,” he said gently. 

She looked up then, and saw him, and recog- 
nized him. 

Then the sad face smiled a welcome. 

He sat near her, and took her knitting in his 
hand, pretending to examine what she had 
done, chatting to her quietly all the time. He 
asked her what she had been doing with herself 
since he had last seen her, and she said * 

“Waiting. I am always waiting." 

He knew that she referred to her lover, who 
had been lost in an avalanche the eve before 
their wedding morning. That was four years 
ago, but Catharina was still waiting. Allitsen 
remembered her as a bright young girl, singing 
in the Gasthaus, waiting cheerfully on the 
guests : a bright gracious presence. No one 
could cook trout as she could ; many a dish of 
trout had she served up for him. And now she 
sat in the sunshine knitting and waiting, 
scarcely ever looking up. That was her life. 


8o SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


“ Catharina,” he said, as he gave her back her 
knitting, do you remember how you used to 
cook me the trout ? ” 

Another smile passed over her face. Yes, she 
remembered. 

Will you cook me some to-day ? ” 

She shook her head, and returned to her 
knitting. 

Bernardine watched the Disagreeable Man 
with amazement. She could not have believed 
that his manner could be so tender and kindly. 
The old mother standing near her whispered : 

“ He was always so good to us all ; we love 
him, every one of us. When poor Catharina 
was betrothed five years ago, it was to Herr 
Allitsen we first told the good news. He has a 
wonderful way about him — ^just look at him 
with Catharina now. She has not noticed any 
one for months, but she knows him, you see." 

At that moment the other members of the 
household came : Liza, Fritz, and Triidchen ; 
Liza, a maiden of nineteen, of the homely Swiss 
type ; Fritz, a handsome lad of fourteen ; and 


DISAGREEABLE MAN IN A NEW LIGHT, 8i 


Triidchen, just free from school, with her school- 
latchel swung on her back.. There was no 
shyness in their greeting ; the Disagreeable 
Man was evidently an old and much-loved 
friend, and inspired confidence, not awe. Trud- 
chen fumbled in his coat pocket, and found 
what she expected to find there, some sweets, 
which she immediately began to eat, perfectly 
contented and self-satisfied. She smiled and 
nodded at Robert Allitsen, as though to reassure 
him that the sweets were not bad, and that she 
was enjoying them. 

“ Liza will see to lunch,” said the old mother. 

You shall have some mutton cutlets and some 
forellen. But before she goes, she has something 
to tell you.” 

“ I am betrothed to Hans,” Liza said, blushing. 

“ I always knew you were fond of Hans,” 
said the Disagreeable Man. He is a good 
fellow, Liza, and I ’m glad you love him. But 
have n’t you just teased him ! ” 

“ That was good for him,” Liza said brightly. 

“ Is he here to-day ? ” Robert Allitsen asked 


82 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


Liza nodded. 

** Then I shall take your photographs,” he said. 

While they had been speaking, Catharina 
rose from her seat, and passed into the house. 
Her mother followed her, and watched her go 
into the kitchen. 

I should like to cook the forellen^* she said 
very quietly. 

It was months since she had done anything 
in the house. The old mother’s heart beat with 
pleasure. 

“ Catharina, my best loved child ! ” she whis- 
pered ; and she gathered the poor suffering soul 
near to her. 

In about half an hour the Disagreeable Man 
and Bernardine sat down to their meal. Robert 
Allitsen had ordered a bottle of Sassella, and 
he was just pouring it out when Catharina 
brought in the forellen. 

“ Why, Catharina,” he said, “ you don’t mean 
you ’ve cooked them ? Then they will be good ! ” 

She smiled, and seemed pleased, and then 
went out of the room. 


DISAGREEABLE MAN IN A NEW LIGHT. 83 

Then he told Bernardine her history, and 
spoke with such kindness and sympathy that 
Bernardine was again amazed at him. But she 
m.ade no remark. 

“ Catharina was always sorry that I was ill,'' he 
said. “ When I stayed here, as I have done, for 
weeks together, she used to take every care of me. 
And it was a kindly sympathy which I could 
not resent. In those days I was suffering more 
than I have done for a long time now, and she 
was very pitiful. She could not bear to hear 
me cough. I used to tell her that she must 
learn not to feel. But you see she did not 
learn her lesson, for when this trouble came on 
her, she felt too much. And you see what she is." 

They had a cheery meal together, and then 
Bernardine talked with the old mother, whilst 
the Disagreeable Man busied himself with his 
camera. Liza was for putting on her best dress, 
and doing her hair in some wonderful way. But 
he would not hear of such a thing. But seeing 
that she looked disappointed, he gave in, and 
said she should be photographed just as she 


sa ships that pass in the night. 


wished ; and off she ran to change her attire. 
She went up to her room a picturesque, homely 
working girl, and she came down a tidy, awk- 
ward-looking young woman, with all her finery 
on, and all her charm off. 

The Disagreeable Man grunted but said 
nothing. 

Then Hans arrived, and then came the posing, 
which caused much amusement. They both 
stood perfectly straight, just as a soldier 
stands before presenting arms. Both faces 
were perfectly expressionless. The Disagreeable 
Man was in despair. 

“ Look happy ! ” he entreated. 

They tried to smile, but the anxiety to do so 
produced an expression of melancholy which 
was too much for the gravity of the photog- 
rapher. He laughed heartily. 

“ Look as though you were n’t going to be 
photographed,” he suggested. “ Liza, for 
goodness’ sake look as though you were baking 
the bread ; and Hans, try and believe that you 
are doing some of your beautiful carving.” 


DISAGREEABLE MAN IN A NEW LIGHT. 85 

The patience of the photographer was some- 
thing wonderful. At last he succeeded in 
making them appear at their ease. And 
then he told Liza that she must go and 
change her dress, and be photographed now 
in the way he wished. She came down again, 
looking fifty times prettier in her working 
clothes. 

Now he was in his element. He arranged 
Liza and Hans on the sledge of timber, which 
had then driven up, and made a picturesque 
group of them all : Hans and Liza sitting 
side by side on the timber, the horses 
standing there so patiently after their long 
journey through the forests, the driver leaning 
against his sledge smoking his long china pipe. 

“ That will be something like a picture,” he 
said to Bernardine, when the performance was 
over. “Now I am going for about a mile’s 
walk. Will you come with me and see what I 
am going to photograph, or will you rest here 
till I come back ? ” 

She chose the latter, and during his absence 


86 ^HIPS THAT PAS^ IN THE NIGHT, 


was shown the treasures and possessions of a 
Swiss peasant’s home. 

She was taken to see the cows in the stalls, 
and had a lecture given her on the respective 
merits of Schneewitchen, a white cow, Kartof* 
felkuchen, a dark brown one, and Roselin, the 
beauty of them all. Then she looked at the 
spinning-wheel, and watched the old Hausfrau 
turn the treadle. And so the time passed, 
Bernardine making good friends of them all. 
Catharina had returned to her knitting and 
began working, and, as before, not noticing any 
one. But Bernardine sat by her side, playing 
with the cat, and after a time Catharina looked 
up at Bernardine’s little thin face, and, after 
some hesitation, stroked it gently with her hand. 

“ Fraulein is not strong,” she said tenderly. “ If 
Fraulein lived here, I should take care of her.,” 

That was a remnant of Catharina’s past. She 
had always loved everything that was ailing and 
weakly. 

Her hand rested on Bernardine’s hand. 
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DISAGREEABLE MAN IN A NEW LIGHT, 87 

ing the while of the girl’s past happiness and 
present bereavement. 

“ Liza is betrothed,” she said, as though to 
herself. “ They don’t tell me ; but I know. I 
was betrothed once.” 

She went on knitting. And that was all she 
said of herself. 

Then after a pause she said : 

“ Fraulein is betrothed ? ” 

Bernardine smiled, and shook her head, and 
Catharina made no further inquiries. But she 
looked up from her work from time to time, and 
seemed pleased that Bernardine still stayed with 
her. At last the old mother came to say that 
the coffee was ready, and Bernadine followed 
her into the parlour. 

She watched Bernardine drinking the coffee, 
and finally poured herself out a cup too. 

** This is the first time Herr Allitsen has ever 
brought a friend,” she said. “ He has always 
been alone. Fraulein is betrothed to Herr 
Allitsen-^^is that so ? Ah, I am glad. He is so 
good and so kind.” 


88 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


Bernardine stopped drinking her coffee. 

“ No, I am not betrothed,” she said cheerily. 
“We are just friends ; and not always that 
either. We quarrel.” 

“ All lovers do that,” persisted Frau Stein- 
hart triumphantly. 

“ Well, you ask him yourself,” said Ber- 
nardine, much amused. She had never looked 
upon Robert Allitsen in that light before. 
“ See, there he comes.” 

Bernardine was not present at the court 
martial, but this was what occurred. Whilst 
the Disagreeable Man was paying the reckon- 
ing, Frau Steinhart said in her most motherly 
tones : 

“ Fraulein is a very dear young lady : Herr 
Allitsen has made a wise choice. He is be- 
trothed at last.” 

The Disagreeable Man stopped counting out 
the money. 

“ Stupid old Frau Steinhart ! ” he said good’ 
naturedly. “ People like myself don’t get 
betrothed. We get buried instead ! ” 


DISAGREEABLE MAN IN A NEW LIGHT, 89 

“ Na, na ! ” she answered. “ What a thing to 
say — and so unlike you too ! No, but tell me.’* 

“Well, I am telling you the truth,” he replied. 
“ If you don’t believe me, ask Fraulein herself.” 

“ I have asked her,” said Frau Steinhart, 
“ and she told me to ask you.” 

The Disagreeable Man was much amused. 
He had never thought of Bernardine in that 
way. 

He paid the bill, and then did something 
which rather astonished Frau Steinhart, and 
half convinced her. 

He took the bill to Bernardine, told her the 
amount of her share, and she repaid him then 
and there. 

There was a twinkle in her eye as she looked 
up at him. Then the composure of her features 
relaxed, and she laughed. 

He laughed too, but no comment was made 
upon the episode. Then began the good-byes, 
and the preparations for the return journey. 

Bernardine bent over Catharina, and kissed 
her sad face. 


90 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 

“ Fraulein will come again ? ” she whispered 
eagerly. 

And Bernardine promised. There was some- 
thing in Bernardine’s manner which had won 
the poor girl’s fancy : some unspoken sympathy, 
some quiet geniality. 

Just as they were starting, Frau Steinhart 
whispered to Robert Allitsen : 

It is a little disappointing to me, Herr 
Allitsen. I did so hope you were betrothed.” 

August, the blue-spectacled driver, cracked 
his whip, and off the horses started homewards. 

For some time there was no conversation be- 
tween the two occupants of the sledge. Ber- 
nardine was busy thinking about the experiences 
of the day, and the Disagreeable Man seemed 
in a brown study. At last he broke the silence 
by asking her how she liked his friends, and 
what she thought of Swiss home life ; and so the 
time passed pleasantly. 

He looked at her once, and said she seemed 
cold. 

“You are not warmly clothed,” he said I. 


% 


DISAGREEABLE MAN IN A NEW LIGHT. 

have an extra coat. Put it on ; don’t make a 
fuss, but do so at once. I know the climate^ 
and you don’t.” 

She obeyed, and said she was all the cosier 
for it. 

As they were nearing Petershof, he said half- 
nervously : 

“ So my friends took you for my betrothed. 
I hope you are not offended.” 

Why should I be ? ” she said frankly. ‘‘ I 
was only amused, because there never were two 
people less lover-like than you and I are.” 

“ No, that ’s quite true,” he replied, in a tone 
of voice which betokened relief. 

So that I really don’t see that we need con- 
cern ourselves further in the matter,” she added, 
wishing to put him quite at his ease. “ I ’m not 
offended, and you are not offended, and there ’s 
an end of it.” 

You seem to me to be a very sensible young 
woman in some respects,” the Disagreeable Man 
remarked after a pause. He was now quite 
cheerful again, and felt he could really praise 




93 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


his companion. “ Although you have read so 
much, you seem to me sometimes to take a sen- 
sible view of things. Now, I don’t want to be 
betrothed to you, any more than I suppose you 
want to be betrothed to me. And yet we can 
talk quietly about the matter without a scene. 
That would be impossible with most women.” 

Bernardine laughed. 

“Well, I only know,” she said cheerily, “that 
I have enjoyed my day very much, and I ’m 
much obliged to you for your companionship. 
The fresh air, and the change of surroundings, 
will have done me good.” 

His reply was characteristic of him. 

“ It is the least disagreeable day I have spent 
for many months,” he said quietly. 

“ Let me settle with you for the sledge now,” 
she said, drawing out her purse, just as they 
came in sight of the Kurhaus. 

They settled money matters, and were quits. 

Then he helped her out of the sledge, and he 
stooped to pick up the shawl she dropped. 

“ Here is the shawl you are always dropping,” 


DISAGREEABLE MAN IN A NEW LIGHT. 93 

he said. “You’re rather cold, aren’t you? 
Here, come to the restaurant and have some 
brandy. Don’t make a fuss. I know what’s 
the right thing for you,” 

She followed him to the restaurant, touched 
by his rough kindness. He himself took noth- 
ing, but he paid for her brandy. 

That evening after table-d h6te^ or rather after 
he had finished his dinner, he rose to go to his 
room as usual. He generally went off without 
a remark. But to-night he said : 

“ Good-night, and thank you for your com- 
panionship. It has been my birthday to-day, 
and I *ve quite enjoyed it.” 


CHAPTER XL 


** IF ONE HAS MADE THE ONE GREAT SACRIFICE.'^ 

HERE was a suicide in the Kurhaus one 



afternoon. A Dutchman, Vandervelt, had 
received rather a bad account of himself from 
the doctor a few days previously, and in a fit 
of depression, so it was thought, he had put 
a bullet through his head. It had occurred 
through Marie’s unconscious agency. She 
found him lying on his sofa when she went as 
usual to take him his afternoon glass of milk. 
He asked her to give him a packet which was 
on the top shelf of his cupboard. 

“ Willingly,” she said, and she jumped nimbly 
on the chair, and gave him the case. 

“ Anything more ? ” she asked kindly, as she 
watched him draw himself up from the sofa. 
She thought at the time that he looked wild 


94 


^'THE ONE GEE AT SACRIFICE: 


95 


and strange ; but then, as she pathetically said 
afterwards, who did not look wild and strange 
in the Kurhaus ? 

“Yes,” he said. “Here are five francs for 
you.” 

She thought that rather unusual too ; but five 
francs, especially coming unexpectedly like 
that, were not to be despised, and Marie deter- 
mined to send them off to that Mutterli at home 
in the nut-brown chalet at Grusch. 

So she thanked Mynheer van Vandervelt, 
and went off to the pantry to drink some cold 
tea which the English people had left, and to 
clean the lamps. Having done that, and know- 
ing that the matron was busily engaged carry- 
ing on a flirtation with a young Frenchman, 
Marie took out her writing materials, and be- 
gan a letter to her old mother. These peasants 
know how to love each other, and some of them 
know how to tell each other too. Marie knew. 
And she told her mother of the gifts she was 
bringing home, the little nothings given her by 
the guests. 


96 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

She was very happy writing this letter : the 
little nut-brown home rose before her. 

“ Ach ! ” she said, “ how I long to be home ! ** 

And then she put down her pen, and sighed. 

“ Ach ! ” she said, “ and when I 'm there, I 
shall long to be here. Da wo ich nicht hin^ da 
ist das Gliicky 

Marie was something of a philosopher. 

Suddenly she heard the report of a pistol, 
followed by a second report. She dashed out 
of her little pantry, and ran in the direction of 
the sound. She saw Warli in the passage. He 
was looking scared, and his letters had fallen to 
the ground. He pointed to No. 54. 

It was the Dutchman’s room. 

Help arrived. The door was forced open, 
and Vandervelt was found dead. The case 
trom which he had taken the pistol was lying 
on the sofa. When Marie saw that, she knew 
that she had been an unconscious accomplice. 
Her tender heart overflowed with grief. Whilst 
others were lifting him up, she leaned her head 
against the wall, and sobbed. 


THE ONE GEE AT SACRIFICE, 97 

“ It was my fault, it was my fault ! ” she cried. 
“ I gave him the case. But how was I to 
know ? ’* 

They took her away, and tried to comfort her, 
but it was all in vain. 

“ And he gave me five francs,” she sobbed. 
** I shudder to think of them.” 

It was all in vain that Warli gave her a letter 
for which she had been longing for many days. 

“ It is from your Mutterliy* he said, as he 
put it into her hands. “ I give it willingly. I 
don’t like the looks of one or two of the letters 
I have to give you, Mariechen. That Hans 
writes to you. Confound him ! ” 

But nothing could cheer her. Warli went 
away shaking his curly head sadly, shocked at 
the death of the Dutchman and shocked at 
Marie’s sorrow. And the cheery little postman 
did not do much whistling that evening. 

Bernardine heard of Marie’s trouble, and 
rang for her to come. Marie answered the bell, 
looking the picture of misery. Her kind face 
was tear-stained, and her only voice was a sob. 


98 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


Bemardine drew the girl to her. 

“ Poor Md Marie,” she whispered. “ Come 
and cry your kind heart out, and then you will 
feel better. Sit by me here, and don’t try to 
speak. And I will make you some tea in true 
English fashion, and you must take it hot, and 
it will do you good.” 

The simple sisterly kindness and silent sym- 
pathy soothed Marie after a time. The sobs 
ceased, and the tears also. And Marie put her 
hand in her pocket and gave Bemardine the 
five francs. 

“ Fraulein Holme, I hate them,” she said. 
“ I could never keep them. How could I send 
them now to my old mother? They would 
bring her ill luck — indeed they would.” 

The matter was solved by Bemardine in a 
masterly fashion. She suggested that Marie 
should buy flowers with the money, and put 
them on the Dutchman’s coffin. This idea 
comforted Marie beyond Bernardine’s most 
sanguine expectations. 

“A beautiful tin wreath,” she said several 


THE ONE GREAT SACRIFICE, 


99 


times. “ I know the exact kind. When my 
father died, we put one on his grave.’* 

That same evening, during table-d' hdte^ Ber- 
nardine told the Disagreeable Man the history 
of the afternoon. He had been developing 
photographs, and had heard nothing. He 
seemed very little interested in her relation of 
the suicide, and merely remarked : 

** Well, there *s one person less in the world.” 

“ I think you make these remarks from habit,” 
Bernardine said quietly, and she went on with 
her dinner, attempting no further conversation 
with him. She herself had been much moved 
by the sad occurrence ; every one in the Kur- 
haus was more or less upset ; and there was a 
thoughtful, anxious expression on more than 
one ordinarily thoughtless face. The little 
French danseuse was quiet ; the Portuguese 
ladies were decidedly tearful : the vulgar Ger- 
man Baroness was quite depressed ; the come- 
dian at the Belgian table ate his dinner in 
silence. In fact, there was a weight pressing 
down on all. Was it really possible, thought 


loo SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


Bernardine, that Robert Allitsen was the only 
one there unconcerned and unmoved ? She 
had seen him in a different light amongst his 
friends, the country folk, but it was just a 
glimpse which had not lasted long. The young- 
heartedness, the geniality, the sympathy which 
had so astonished her during their day's outing, 
astonished her still more by their total dis- 
appearance. The gruffness had returned ; or 
had it never been absent ? The lovelessness 
and leadenness of his temperament had once 
more asserted themselves : or was it that they 
had never for one single day been in the back- 
ground ? 

These thoughts passed through her mind as 
he sat next to her reading his paper — that 
paper which he nevei passed on to any one. 
She hardened her heart against him ; there 
was no need for ill-health and disappointment 
to have brought any one to a miserable state of 
indifference like that. Then she looked at his 
wan face and frail form, and her heart softened 
at once. At the moment when her heart soft* 


THE ONE GEE AT SACRIFICE. 


101 


cned to him, he astonished her by handing her 
his paper. 

“ Here is something to interest you,” he said, 

an article on Realism in Fiction, or some non- 
sense like that. You need n*t read it now. I 
don't want the paper again.” 

I thought you never lent anything,” she 
said, as she glanced at the article, “ much less 
gave it.” 

** Giving and lending are not usually in my 
line,” he replied. “ I think I told you once 
that I thought selfishness perfectly desirable 
and legitimate, if one had made the one great 
sacrifice.” 

“ Yes,” she said eagerly ; “ I have often 
wondered what you considered the one great 
sacrifice.” 

“ Come out into the air,” he answered, ** and 
I will tell you.” 

She went to put on her cloak and hat, and 
found him waiting for her at the top of the 
staircase. They passed out into the beautiful 
night: the sky was radiantly bejewelled, the 


102 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


air crisp and cold, and harmless to do ill. In 
the distance, the jodelling of some peasants. In 
the hotels, the fun and merriment, side by side 
with the suffering and hopelessness. In the 
deaconess’s house, the body of the Dutchman, 
In God’s heavens, God’s stars. 

Robert Allitsen and Bernardine walked si- 
lently for some time. 

“ Well,” she said, now tell me.” 

“The one great sacrifice,” he said half to 
himself, “ is the going on living one’s life for 
the sake of another, when everything that would 
seem to make life acceptable has been wrenched 
away, not the pleasures, but the duties, and the 
possibilities of expressing one’s energies, either 
in one direction or another: when, in fact, 
living is only a long tedious dying. If one has 
made this sacrifice, everything else may be for- 
given.” 

He paused a moment, and then continued : 

“ I have made this sacrifice, therefore I con* 
sider I have done my part without flinching 
The greatest thing I had to give up, I gave up; 


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THE ONE GREAT SACRIFICE. 103 

my death. More could not be required of any 
one.*' 

He paused again, and Bemardine was silent 
from mere awe. 

“ But freedom comes at last," he said, “ and 
some day I shall be free. When my mother 
dies, I shall be free. She is old. If I were to 
die, I should break her heart, or rather she 
would fancy that her heart was broken, (And 
it comes to the same thing.) And I should 
not like to give her more grief than she has had. 
So I am just waiting. It may be months, or 
weeks, or years. But I know how to wail : if I 
have not learnt anything else, I have learnt how 
to wait And then ** 

Bemardine had unconsciously put her hand 
on his arm ; her face was full of suffering. 

** And then ? " she asked, with almost painful 
eagerness. 

** And then I shall follow your Dutchman’s 
example," he said deliberately. 

Bemardine’s . hand fell from the Disagreeable 
Man’s arm. 


104 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


She shivered. 

“You are cold, you little thing,” he said, 
almost tenderly for him. “You are shivering.” 

“Was I ? ” she said, with a short laugh. “ I 
was wondering when you would get your free- 
dom, and whether you would use it in the fashion 
you now intend.” 

“ Why should there be any doubt ? ” he asked. 

“ One always hopes there would be a doubt,” 
she said, half in a whisper. 

Then he looked up, and saw all the pain on 
the little face. 


CHAPTER XII. 


THE DI5.*GREEABLE MAN MAKES A LOAN. 

^J^HE Dutchman was buried in the little ceme- 
tery which faced the hospital. Marie’s tin 
wreath was placed on the grave. And there the 
matter ended. The Kurhaus guests recovered 
from their depression : the German Baroness 
returned to her buoyant vulgarity, the little 
danseuse to her busy flirtations. The French 
Marchioness, celebrated in Parisian circles for 
her domestic virtues, from which she was now 
taking a holiday, and a very considerable holiday 
too, gathered her nerves together again and 
took renewed pleasure in the society of the 
Russian gentleman. The French Marchioness 
had already been requested to leave three other 
hotels in Petershof ; but it was not at all 
probable that the proprietors of the Kurhaus 
105 


io6 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


would have presumed to measure Madame’s 
morality or immorality. The Kurhaus com- 
mittee had a benign indulgence for humanity — 
provided of course that humanity had a purse 
— an indulgence which some of the English 
hotels would not have done badly to imitate. 
There was a story afloat concerning the English 
quarter, that a tired little English lady, of no 
importance to look at, probably not rich, and 
probably not handsome, came to the most 
respectable hotel in Petershof, thinking to find 
there the peace and quiet which her weariness 
required. 

But no one knew who the little lady was, 
whence she had come, and why. She kept 
entirely to herself, and was thankful for the 
luxury of loneliness after some overwhelming 
sorrow. 

One day she was requested to go. The 
proprietor of the hotel was distressed, but he 
could not do otherwise than comply with the 
demands of his guests. 

It is not known who you are. Mademoiselle^” 


DISAGREEABLE MAN MANES A LOAN 107 

he said. “ And you are not approved of. You 
English are curious people. But what can I do ? 
You have a cheap room, and are a stranger to 
me. The others have expensive apartments, 
and come year after year. You see my position, 
Mademoiselle ? I am sorry.’* 

So the little tired lady had to go. That was 
how the story went. It was not known what 
became of her, but it was known that the 
English people in the Kurhaus tried to per- 
suade her to come to them. But she had lost 
heart, and left in distress. 

This could not have happened in the Kurhaus, 
where all were received on equal terms, those 
about whom nothing was known, and those 
about whom too much was known. The strange 
mixture and the contrasts of character afforded 
endless scope for observation and amusement, 
and Bernardine, who was daily becoming more 
interested in her surroundings, felt that she 
would have been sorry to have exchanged her 
present abode for the English quarter. The 
amusing part of it was that the English people 


lo8 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


in the Kurhaus were regarded by their com- 
patriots in the English quarter as sheep of the 
blackest dye ! This was all the more ridiculous 
because with two exceptions — firstly of Mrs. 
Reffold, who took nearly all her pleasures with 
the American colony in the Grand Hotel ; and 
secondly, of a Scotch widow who had returned 
to Petershof to weep over her husband’s grave, 
but put away her grief together with her 
widow’s weeds, and consoled herself with a 
Spanish gentleman — with these two exceptions, 
the little English community in the Kurhaus was 
most humdrum and harmless, being occupied, as 
in the case of the Disagreeable Man, with 
cameras and cheese-mites, or in other cases with 
the still more engrossing pastime of taking care 
of one’s ill-health, whether real or fancied : but 
yet, an innocent hobby in itself, and giving 
one absolutely no leisure to do anything worse : 
a great recommendation for any pastime. 

This was not Bernardino’s occupation : it was 
difficult to say what she did with herself, for 
she had not yet followed Robert Allitsen’s 


DISAGREEABLE MAN MANES A LOAN 109 


advice and taken up some definite work ; and 
the very fact that she had no such wish, pointed 
probably to a state of health which forbade it. 
She, naturally so keen and hard-working, was 
content to take what the hour brought, and the 
hour brought various things : chess with the 
Swedish professor, or Russian dominoes with 
the shrivelled-up little Polish governess who 
always tried to cheat, and who clutched her 
tiny winnings with precisely the same greedh 
ness shown by the Monte Carlo female gamblers. 
Or the hour brought a stroll with the French 
danseuse and her poodle, and a conversation 
about the mere trivialities of life, which a year 
or two, or even a few months ago, Bernardine 
would have condemned as beneath contempt, 
but which were now taking their rightful place 
in her new standard of importances. For some 
natures learn with greater difficulty and after 
greater delay than others, that the real impor- 
tances of our existence are the nothingnesses 
of every-day life, the nothingnesses which the 
philosopher in his study, reasoning about and 


no SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


analysing human character, is apt to overlook ; 
but which, nevertheless, make him and every 
one else more of a human reality and less of an 
abstraction. And Bernardine, hitherto occupied 
with so-called intellectual pursuits, with prob- 
lems of the study, of no value to the great 
world outside the study, or with social problems 
of the great world, great movements, and great 
questions, was now just beginning to appreciate 
the value of the little incidents of that same 
great world. Or the hour brought its own 
thoughts, and Bernardine found herself con- 
stantly thinking of the Disagreeable Man : al- 
ways in sorrow and always with sympathy, and 
sometimes with tenderness. 

When he told her about the one sacrifice, she 
could have wished to wrap him round with love 
and tenderness. If he could only have known 
it, he had never been so near love as then. She 
had suffered so much herself, and, with increas- 
ing weaknesses, had so wished to put off the 
burden of the flesh, that her whole heart went 
out to him. 


DISAGREEABLE MAN MANES A LOAN in 


Would he get his freedom, she wondered, and 
would he use it ? Sometimes when she was 
with him, she would look up to see whether she 
could read the answer in his face ; but she never 
saw any variation of expression there, nothing 
to give her even a suggestion. But this she 
noticed : that there was a marked variation in 
his manner, and that when he had been rough 
in bearing, or bitter in ‘speech, he made silent 
amends at the earliest opportunity by being less 
rough and less bitter. She felt this was no 
small concession on the part of the Disagreeable 
Man. 

He was particularly disagreeable on the day 
when the Dutchman was buried, and so the 
following day when Bernardine met him in the 
little English library, she was not surprised to 
find him almost kindly. 

He had chosen the book which she wanted, 
but he gave it up to her at once without any 
grumbling, though Bernardine expected him 
to change his mind before they left the library. 

‘‘Well,*’ he said, as they walked along to- 


iI2 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

gather, “ and have you recovered from the death 
of the Dutchman ? ” 

“ Have you recovered, rather let me ask ? ” 
she said. ‘^You were in a horrid mood last 
night.” 

“ I was feeling wretchedly ill,” he said quietly. 

That was the first time he had ever alluded to 
his own health. 

“ Not that there is any need to make an 
excuse,” he continued, for I do not recognize 
that there is any necessity to consult one’s sur- 
roundings, and alter the inclination of one’s 
mind accordingly. Still, as a matter of fact, I 
felt very ill.” 

“ And to-day ? ” she asked. 

“To-day I am myself again,” he answered 
quickly : “ that usual normal self of mine, 
whatever that may mean. I slept well, and I 
dreamed of you. I can’t say that I had been 
thinking of you, because I had not. But I 
dreamed that we were children together, and 
playmates. Now that was very odd : because I 
was a lonely child, and never had any play- 
mates.’' 


DISAGREEABLE MAN MANES A LOAN. 113 

** And I was lonely too,” said Bernardine. 

** Every one is lonely,” he said, but every 
one does not know it.” 

“ But now and again the knowledge comes 
like a revelation,” she said, “ and we realize that 
we stand practically alone, out of any one’s 
reach for help or comfort. When you come to 
think of it, too, how little able we are to 
explain ourselves. When you have wanted to 
say something which was burning within you, 
have you not noticed on the face of the listener 
that unmistakable look of non-comprehension, 
which throws you back on yourself? That is 
one of the moments when the soul knows its 
own loneliness.” 

Robert Allitsen looked up at her. 

** You little thing,” he said, ‘‘you put things 
neatly sometimes. You have felt, have n’t 
you ? ” 

“ I suppose so,” she said. “ But that is true 
of most people.” 

“ I beg your pardon,” he answered, “ most 
people neither think nor feel : unless they think 
they have an ache^ and then they feel it ! ” 


II4 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 

“I believe,” said Bernardine, “that there is 
more thinking and feeling than one generally 
supposes.” 

“Well, I can’t be bothered with that now,” 
he said. “ And you interrupted me about my 
dream. That is an annoying habit you 
have.” 

“ Go on,” she said. “ I apologize.” 

“I dreamed we were children together, and 
playmates,” he continued. “We were not at 
all happy together, but still we were playmates. 
There was nothing we did not quarrel about. 
You were disagreeable, and 1 was spiteful. 
Our greatest dispute was over a Christmas-tree. 
And that was odd, too, for I have never seen a 
Christmas-tree.” 

“Well?” she said, for he had paused. 
“What a long time you take to tell a story.” 

“You were not called Bernardine,” he said. 
“You were called by some ordinary sensible 
name. I don’t remember what. But you were 
very disagreeable. That I remember well. 
At last you disappeared, and I went about 


DISAGREEABLE MAN MANES A LOAN 115 

looking for you. ‘ If I can find something to 
cause a quarrel,’ I said to myself, ‘ she will come 
back.’ So I went and smashed your doll’s head. 
But you did not come back. Then I set on fire 
your doll’s house. But even that did not bring 
you back. Nothing brought you back. That 
was my dream. I hope you are not offended. 
Not that it makes any difference if you are.” 
Bernardine laughed. 

“ I am sorry that I should have been such an 
unpleasant playmate,” she said. “ It was a 
good thing I did disappear.” 

“ Perhaps it was,” he said. “ There would 
have been a terrible scene about that doll’s head. 
An odd thing for me to dream about Christmas- 
trees and dolls and playmates : especially when 
I went to sleep thinking about my new 
camera.” 

“ You have a new camera ? ” she asked. 
“Yes,” he answered, “and a beauty, too. 
Would you like to see it?” 

She expressed a wish to se'Os^ and when they 
reached the Kurhaus, she went him up to 


Ii6 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


his beautiful room, where he spent his time in 
the company of his microscope and his chemical 
bottles and his photographic possessions. 

“ If you sit down and look at those photo- 
graphs, I will make you some tea,” he said. 
‘‘ There is the camera, but please not to touch 
it until I am ready to show it myself.” 

She watched him preparing the tea ; he did 
everything so daintily, this Disagreeable Man. 
He put a handkerchief on the table, to serve for 
an afternoon tea-cloth, and a tiny vase of violets 
formed the centre-piece. He had no cups, but 
he polished up two tumblers, and no housemaid 
could have been more particular about their 
glossiness. Then he boiled the water and made 
the tea. Once she offered to help him ; but he 
shook his head. 

“ Kindly not to interfere,” he said grimly. 
“ No one can make tea better than I can.” 

After tea, they began the inspection of the 
new camera, and Robert Allitsen showed her 
all the newest improvements. He did not seem 
to think much of her intelligence, for he ex- 


PISAGREEABLE MAN MANES A LOAN. 117 

plained everything as though he were talking to 
a child, until Bernardine rather lost patience. 

“ You need not enter into such elaborate ex- 
planations,” she suggested. I have a small 
amount of intelligence, though you do not seem 
to detect it.” 

He looked at her as one might look at an 
impatient child. 

“ Kindly not to interrupt me,” he replied 
mildly. “ How very impatient you are ! And 
how restless ! What must you have been like 
before you fell ill ? ” 

But he took the hint all the same, and 
shortened his explanations, and as Bernardine 
was genuinely interested, he was well satisfied. 
From time to time he looked at his old camera 
and at his companion, and from the expression 
of unease on his face, it was evident that some 
contest was going on in his mind. Twice he 
stood near his old camera, and turned round to 
Bernardine intending to make some remark. 
Then he changed his mind, and walked abruptly 
to the other end of the room as though to seek 


Ii8 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


advice from his chemical bottles. Bernard ine 
meanwhile had risen from her chair, and was 
looking out of the window. 

“ You have a lovely view, she said. “ It must 
be nice to look at that when you are tired of 
dissecting cheese-mites. All the same, I think 
the white scenery gives one a great sense of 
sadness and loneliness.” 

Why do you speak always of loneliness ? ” he 
asked. 

I have been thinking a good deal about it,” 
she said. “ When I was strong and vigorous the 
idea of loneliness never entered my mind. Now 
I see how lonely most people are. If I believed 
in God as a Personal God, I should be inclined 
to think that loneliness were part of his scheme : 
so that the soul of man might turn to him and 
him alone.” 

The Disagreeable Man was standing by his 
camera again : his decision was made. 

“ Don’t think about those questions,” he said 
kindly. Don’t worry and fret too much about 
the philosophy of life. Leave philosophy alone, 



THE WHITE SCENERY GIVES ONE A GREAT SENSE OF SADNESS. 





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DISAGREEABLE MAN MAKES A LOAN, 119 

and take to photography instead. Here, I will 
lend you my old camera.” 

“ Do you mean that ? ” she asked, glancing 
at him in astonishment. 

“ Of course I mean it,” he said. 

He looked remarkably pleased with himself, 
and Bernardine could not help smiling. He 
looked just as a child looks when he has given 
up a toy to another child, and is conscious that 
he has behaved himself rather well. 

“ I am very much obliged to you,” she said 
frankly. I have had a great wish to learn 
photography.” 

I might have lent my camera to you before, 
might n’t I ? ” he said thoughtfully. 

“No,” she answered. “There was not any 
reason.” 

“ No,” he said, with a kind of relief, “there 
was not any reason. That is quite true.” 

“ When will you give me my first lesson ? ” 
she asked. “ Perhaps, though, you would like 
to wait a few days, in case you change your 
mind.” 


J20 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


"It takes me some time to make up my 
mind,” he replied ; “ but I do not change it. 
So I will give you your first lesson to-morrow. 
Only you must not be impatient. You must 
consent to be taught ; you cannot possibly know 
everything ! ” 

They fixed a time for the morrow, and Ber- 
nardino went off with the camera ; and meeting 
Marie on the staircase, confided to her the piece 
of good fortune which had befallen her. 

" See what Herr Allitsen has lent me, Marie ! ” 
she said. 

Marie raised her hands in astonishment. ' 

"Who would have thought such a thing of 
Herr Allitsen ? ” said Marie. "Why, he does not 
like lending me a match.” 

Bernardine laughed and passed on to her 
room. 

And the Disagreeable Man meanwhile was 
cutting a new scientific book which had just 
come from England. He spent a good deal of 
money on himself. He was soon absorbed in 
this book, and much interested in the diagrams. 


DISAGREEABLE MAN MANES A LOAN. I2i 


Suddenly he looked up to the corner where 
the old camera had stood, before Bernardino 
took it away in triumph. 

“ I hope she wont hurt that camera,” he said 

a little uneasily. “ I am half sorry that ” 

Then a kinder mood took possession of him. 
“ Well, at least it will keep her from fussing 
and fretting and thinking. Still, i hope she 
won’t hurt it.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


A DOMESTIC SCENE. 

afternoon when Mrs. Reffold came to 
say good-bye to her husband before going 
out for the usual sledge-drive, he surprised her 
by his unwonted manner. 

“Take your cloak off,” he said sharply, 
“You cannot go for your drive this afternoon. 
You don't often give up your time to me ; you 
must do so to-day.” 

She was so astonished that she at once laid 
aside her cloak and hat, and touched the bell. 

“ Why are you ringing ? ” Mr. Reffold asked 
testily. 

“ To send a message of excuse,” she answered, 
with provoking cheerfulness. 

She scribbled something on a card, and gave 
it to the servant who answered the belL 


A DOMESTIC SCENE, 

Now/* she said, with great sweetness of 
manner. And she sat down beside him, drew 
out her fancy-work, and worked away con- 
tentedly. She would have made a charming 
study of a devoted wife soothing a much-loved 
husband in his hours of sickness and weariness. 

‘‘ Do you mind giving up your drive ? ” he 
asked 

“ Not in the least,’* she replied. ** I am 
rather tired of sledging.” 

“ You soon get tired of things, Winifred,” he 
said. 

“ Yes, I do,” was the answer. “ I am so 
easily bored. I am quite tired of this place.” 

‘‘You will have to stay here a little longer,” 
he said, “ and then you will be free to go where 
you choose. I wish I could die quicker for 
you, Winifred.” 

Mrs. Reffold looked up from her embroidery. 

“ You will get better soon, ’ she said. “ You 
are better.” 

“ Yes, you *ve helped a good deal to make me 
better,” he said bitterly. “You have been a 


124 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


most unselfish person, have n’t you ? You have 
given me every care and attention, have n’t 
you ? * 

“You seem to me in a very strange mood to- 
day,” she said, looking puzzled. “ I don’t un- 
derstand you.” 

Mr. Reffold laughed. 

“ Poor Winifred,” he said. “ If it is ever 
your lot to fall ill and be neglected, perhaps 
then you will think of me.” 

“Neglected?” she said, in some surprise. 
“ What do you mean ? I thought you had 
everything you wanted. The nurse brought 
excellent testimonials. I was careful in the 
choice of her. You have never complained 
before.” 

He turned wearily on his side, and made no 
answer. And for some time there was silence 
between them. Then he watched her as she 
bent over her embroidery. 

“You are very beautiful, Winifred,” he said 
quietly, “ but you are a selfish woman. Has it 
ever struck you that you are selfish ? ” 


A DOMESTIC SCENE, 


125 


Mrs. Reffold gave no reply, but she made a 
resolution to write to her particular friend at 
Cannes and confide to her how very trying her 
husband had become. 

“ I suppose it is part of his illness,” she thought 
meekly. ‘‘ But it is hard to have to bear it.” 

And Mrs. Reffold pitied herself profoundly. 
She stitched sincere pity for herself into that 
piece of embroidery. 

“ I remember you telling me,” continued Mr. 
Reffold, “ that sick people repelled you. That 
was when I was strong and vigorous. But since 
I have been ill, I have often recalled your words. 
Poor Winifred ! You did not think then that 
you would have an invalid husband on your 
hands. Well, you were not intended for sick- 
room nursing, and you have not tried to be what 
you were not intended for. Perhaps you were 
right, after all.” 

“ I don’t know why you should be so unkind 
to-day,” Mrs. Reffold said, with pathetic 
patience. “ I can’t understand you. You have 
never spoken like this before.” 


126 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


“ No,” he said ; “ but I have thought like this 
before. All the hours that you have left me 
lonely, I have been thinking like this, with my 
heart full of bitterness against you, until that 
little girl, that Little Brick came along.” 

After that, it was some time before ne spoke. 
He was thinking of his Little Brick, and of all 
the pleasant hours he had spent with her, 
and of the kind, wise words she had spoken to 
him, an ignorant fellow. She was something 
like a companion. 

So he went on thinking, and Mrs. Reffold 
went on embroidering. She was now feeling 
herself to be almost a heroine. It is a very easy 
matter to make oneself into a heroine or a mar- 
tyr. Selfish, neglectful ? What did he mean ? 
Oh, it was just part of his illness. She must go 
on bearing her burden as she had borne it these 
many months. Her rightful position was in a 
London ball-room. Instead of which, she had 
to be shut irp in an Alpine village : a hard 
lot. It was little enough pleasure she could get, 
and apparently her husband grudged her that 


A DOMESTIC SCENE, 


127 


His manner to her this afternoon was not 
such as to encourage her to stay in from her 
drive on another occasion. To-morrow she 
would go sledging. 

That flash of light which reveals ourselves to 
ourselves had not yet come to Mrs. Reffold. 

She looked at her husband, and thought from 
his restfulness that he had gone to sleep, and 
she was just beginning {o write to that 
particular friend at Cannes, to tell her what a 
trial she was undergoing, when Mr. Reffold 
called her to his side. 

** Winifred,” he said gently, and there was 
tenderness in his voice, and love written on his 
face, “ Winifred, I am sorry if I have been sharp 
to you. Little Brick says we must n’t come 
down like sledge-hammers on each other ; and 
that is what I have been doing this afternoon. 
Perhaps I have been hard : I am such an illness 
to myself, that I must be an illness to others too. 
And you were n’t meant for this sort of thing — • 
were you ? You are a bright, beautiful creature, 
and I am an unfortunate dog not to have been 


128 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


able to make you happier. I know I am irri* 
table. I can’t help myself, indeed I can’t.” 

This great long fellow was so yearning foi 
love and sympathy. 

What would it not have been to him if she 
had gathered him into her arms, and soothed all 
his irritability and suffering with her love ? 

But she pressed his hand, and kissed him 
lightly on the cheek, and told him that he had 
been a little sharp, but that she quite understood, 
and that she was not hurt. Her charm of man- 
ner gave him some satisfaction ; and when 
Bernardine came in a few minutes later, she 
found Mr. Reffold looking happier and more 
contented than she had ever seen him. Mrs. 
Reffold, who was relieved at the interruption, 
received Bernardine warmly, though there was a 
certain amount of shyness which she had never 
been able to conquer in Bernardine’s presence. 
There was something in the younger woman 
which quelled Mrs. Reffold : it may have been 
some mental quality, or it may have been hei 
boots t 


A DOMESTIC SCENE, 


12 ^ 

“ Little Brick,” said Mr. Reffold, “ is n’t it 
nice to have Winifred here ? And I have been 
so disagreeable and snappish.” 

“ Oh, we won’t say anything about that now,” 
said Mrs, Reffold, smiling sweetly. 

‘‘ But I Ve said I am sorry,” he continued. 

And one can’t do more.” 

“ No,” said Bernardine, who was amused at 
the notion of Mr. Reffold apologizing to Mrs. 
Reffold, and of Mrs. Reffold posing as the 
gracious forgiver, “ one can’t do more.” But 
she could not control her feelings, and she 
laughed. 

“ You seem rather merry this afternoon,” 
Mr. Reffold said, in a reproachful tone of 
voice, 

“Yes,” she said. And she laughed again. 
Mrs. Reffold’s forgiving graciousness had alto- 
gether upset her gravity, 

“You might at least tell us the joke,” Mrs. 
Reffold said. 

Bernardine looked at her hopelessly, End 
laughed again. 

9 


130 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 

** I have been developing photographs all the 
afternoon,’" she said, ** and I suppose the close- 
ness of the air and the badness of my negatives 
have been too much for me. Anyway, I know 
I must seem very rude.” 

She recovered herself after that, and tried 
hard not to think of Mrs. Reffold as the dis- 
penser of forgiveness, although it was some 
time before she could look at her hostess without 
wishing to laugh. The corners of her mouth 
twitched, and her brown eyes twinkled mis- 
chievously, and she spoke very rapidly, making 
fun of her first attempts at photography, and 
criticising herself so comically, that both Mr. 
and Mrs. Reifold were much amused. 

All the same, Bernardine was relieved when 
Mrs. Reffold went to fetch some silks, and left 
her with Mr. Reffold. 

** I am very happy this afternoon, little Brick,” 
he said to her. “ My wife has been sitting with 
me. But instead of enjoying the pleasure as I 
ought to have done, I began to find fault with 
her. I don’t know how long I should not have 


A DOMESTIC SCEUE. 


*3t 

gone on grumbling, but that I suddenly recol- 
lected what you taught me : that we were not to 
come down like sledge-hammers on each other’s 
failings. When I remembered that, it was 
quite easy to forgive all the neglect and 
thoughtlessness. Since you have talked to me, 
Little Brick, everything has become easier to 
me.” 

“ It is something in your own mind which 
has worked this,” she said ; your own kind, 
generous mind, and you put it down to my 
words.” 

But he shook his head. 

** If I knew of any poor unfortunate devil 
that wanted to be eased and comforted,” he said, 
‘‘ I should tell him about you. Little Brick. You 
have been very good to me. You may be clever, 
but you have never worried my stupid brain 
with too much scholarship. I ’m just an igno- 
rant chap, and you ’ve never let me feel it.” 

He took her hand and raised it reverently to 
his lips. 

“ I say,” he continued, “ tell my wife it made 


132 SHIPS THAT PASS IH THE NIGHT, 

me happy to have her with me this afternoon ; 
then perhaps she will stay in another time. I 
should like her to know. And she was sweet 
in .her manner, was n’t she ? And, by Jove, she 
is beautiful ! I am glad you have seen her here 
to-day. It must be dull for her with an invalid 
like me. And I know I am irritable. Go and 
tell her that she made me happy — will you ? ” 

The little bit of happiness at which the poor 
fellow snatched, seemed to make him more 
pathetic than before. Bernardine promised to 
tell his wife, and went off to find her, making 
as an excuse a book which Mrs. Reffold had 
offered to lend her. Mrs. Reffold was in her 
bedroom. She asked Bernardine to sit down 
whilst she searched for the book. She had a 
very gracious manner when she chose. 

“ You are looking much better. Miss Holme,” 
she said kindly. “ I cannot help noticing youi 
face. It looks younger and brighter. The 
bracing air has done you good.” 

‘‘Yes, I am better,” Bernardine said, rathei 
astonished that Mrs. Reffold should have no« 



/ 



ON OTHERS, FARMS OR THE HOMES OF FEASANIS. 








I 



A DOMESTIC SCENE. 


133 


ticed her at all. Mr. Allitsen informs me that 
I shall live, but never be strong. He settles 
every question of that sort to his own satisfac- 
tion, but not always to the satisfaction of other 
people 1 ” 

“ He is a curious person,” Mrs. Reffold said, 
smiling ; “ though I must say he is not quite as 
gruff as he used to be. You seem to be good 
friends with him.” 

She would have liked to say more on this 
subject, but experience had taught her that 
Bernardine was not to be trifled with. 

“ I don’t know about being good friends,” 
Bernardine said, “ but I have a great sympathy 
for him. I know myself what it is to be cut off 
from work and active life. I have been through 
a misery. But mine is nothing to his.” 

She rose to go, but Mrs. Reffold detained 
her. 

“ Don’t go yet,” she said. It is pleasant to 
have you.” 

She was leaning back in an arm-chair, playing 
with the fringe of an antimacassar. 


134 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


“ Oh, how tired I am of this horrid place ! " 
she said suddenly. And I have had a most 
wearying afternoon. Mr. Reffold seems to be 
more irritable every day. It is very hard that 
I should have to bear it.” 

Bernardine listened to her in astonishment. 

**Yes,” she added, “I am quite worn out. 
He never used to be so irritable. It is all very 
tiresome. It is quite telling on my health.” 

She looked the picture of health. 

Bernardine gasped ; and Mrs. Reffold con- 
tinued : 

“ His grumbling this afternoon has been inces- 
sant ; so much so that he himself was ashamed, 
and asked me to forgive him. You heard him, 
did n’t you ! ” 

Yes, I heard him,” Bernardine said. 

** And of course I forgave him at once,” Mrs. 
Reffold said piously. “ Naturally one would do 
that, but the vexation remains all the same.” 

“ Can these things be ? ” thought Bernardine 
to herself. 

‘‘He spoke in a most ridiculous way,” she 


A DOMESTIC SCENE, 


135 


A^ent on ; ** it certainly is not encouraging for 
me to spend another afternoon with him. I shall 
go sledging to-morrow/’ 

You generally do go sledging, don’t you?” 
Bernardine asked mildly. 

Mrs. Reffold looked at her suspiciously. She 
was never quite sure that Bernardine was not 
making fun of her. 

“ It is little enough pleasure I do have,” she 
added, as though in self-defence. ‘‘ And he 
seems to grudge me that too.” 

I don’t think he would grudge you any- 
thing,” Barnardine said, with some warmth. 
“ He loves you too much for that. You don’t 
know how much pleasure you give him. when 
you spare him a little of your time. He told 
me how happy you made him this afternoon. 
You could see for yourself that he was happy. 
Mrs. Reffold, make him happy whilst you still 
have him. Don’t you understand that he is 
passing away from you — don’t you understand, 
or is it that you won't? We all see it, all except 
you I ” 


136 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

She stopped suddenly, surprised at her bold 
ness. 

Mrs. Reffold was still leaning back in the arm- 
chair, her hands clasped together above her 
beautiful head. Her face was pale. She did 
not speak. Bernardine waited. The silence 
was unbroken save by the merry cries of some 
children tobogganing in the Kurhaus garden. 
The stillness grew oppressive, and Bernardine 
rose. She knew from the effort which those few 
words had cost her, how far removed she was 
from her old former self. 

Good-bye, Mrs. Reffold,” she said nervously. 

Good-bye, Miss Holme,” was the only 


answer. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


CONCERNING THE CARETAKERS. 


^HE Doctors in Petershof always said that 
the caretakers of the invalids were a^much 
greater anxiety than the invalids themselv^s*^ 
The invalids would either get better or die : 
one of two things probably. At any rate, you 
knew where you were with them. But not so 
with the caretakers ; there was nothing they 
were not capable of doing — except taking 
reasonable care of their invalids ! They either 
fussed about too much, or else they did not fuss 
about at all. They all began by doing the right 
thing : they all ended by doing the wrong. The 
fussy ones had fits of apathy, when the poor 
irritable patients seemed to get a* little better ; 
the negligent ones had paroxysms of attentive- 


138 SHIPS THJtr PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


ness, when their invalids, accustomed to lone* 
liness and neglect, seemed to become rather 
worse by being worried. 

To remonstrate with the caretakers would 
have been folly : for they were well satisfied 
with their own methods. 

To contrive their departure would have been 
an impossibility : for they were firmly convinced 
that their presence was necessary to the welfare 
of their charges. And then, too, judging from 
the way in which they managed to amuse them- 
selves, they liked being in Petershof, though 
they never owned that to the invalids. On the 
contrary, it was the custom for the caretakers to 
depreciate the place, and to deplore the neces- 
sity which obliged them to continue there month 
after month. They were fond, too, of talking 
ibout the sacrifices which they made, and the 
pleasures which they willingly gave up in order 
to stay with their invalids. They said this in 
the presence of their invalids. And if the latter 
had told them by all means to pack up and go 
back to the pleasures which they had renounced, 


CONCERNING THE CARETAKERS, I3g 


they would have been astonished at the ingrati- 
tude which could suggest the idea. 

They were amusing characters, these care- 
takers. They were so thoroughly unconscious 
of their own deficiencies. They might neglect 
their own invalids, but they would look after 
other people’s invalids, and play the nurse most 
soothingly and prettily where there was no call 
and no occasion. Then they would come and 
relate to their neglected dear ones what they 
had been doing for others : and the dear ones 
would smile quietly, and watch the buttons 
being stitched on for strangers, and the cornflour 
which they could not get nicely made for them- 
selves, being carefully prepared for other people’s 
neglected dear ones. 

Some of the dear ones were rather bitter. 
But there were many of a higher order of 
intelligence who seemed to realize that they 
had no right to be ill, and that being ill, and 
therefore a burden on their friends, they must 
make the best of everything, and be grateful 
for what was given them, and patient when any- 


140 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


thing was withheld. Others of a still highel 
order of understanding attributed the eccen- 
tricities of the caretakers to one cause alone i 
the Petershof air. They knew it had the 
invariable effect of getting into the head, and 
upsetting the balance of those who drank deep 
of it. Therefore no one was to blame, and 
no one need be bitter. But these were the 
philosophers of the colony : a select and dainty 
few in any colony. But there were several 
rebels amongst the invalids, and they found 
consolation in confiding to each other their 
separate grievances. They generally held their 
conferences in the rooms known as the news- 
paper-rooms, where they were not likely to be 
interrupted by any caretakers who might have 
stayed at home because they were tired out. 

To-day there were only a few rebels gathered 
together, but they were more than usually ex- 
cited, because the Doctors had told several of 
them that their respective caretakers must be 
sent home. 

What must I do ? ” said little Mdlle. Gerardy 


CONCERNING THE CARETAKERS, 141 

wringing her hands. “ The Doctor says that 1 
must tell my sister to go home : that she only 
worries me, and makes me worse. He calls her 
a ‘ whirlwind.’ If I won’t tell her, then he will 
tell her, and we shall have some more scenes. 
Mon Dieu ! and I am so tired of them. They 
terrify me. I would suffer anything rather 
than have a fresh scene. And I can’t get her 
to do anything for me. She has no time for 
me. And yet she thinks she takes the greatest 
possible care of me, and devotes the whole day 
to me. Why, sometimes I never see her for 
hours together.” 

“ Well, at least she does not quarrel with 
every one, as my mother does,” said a Polish 
gentleman, M. Lichinsky. Nearly every day 
she has a quarrel with some one or other ; and 
then she comes to me and says she has been in- 
sulted. And others come to me mad with rage, 
and complain that they have been insulted by 
her. As though I were to blame ! I tell them 
that now. I tell them that my mother’s quarrels 
are not my quarrels. But one longs for peace. 


142 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

And the Doctor says I must have it, and that 
my mother must go home at once. If I tell 
her that, she will have a tremendous quarrel 
with the Doctor. As it is, he will scarcely 
speak to her. So you see. Mademoiselle Gerar- 
dy, that I, too, am in a bad plight. What am I 
to do ? 

Then a young American spoke. He had been 
getting gradually worse since he came to Peters- 
hof, but his brother, a bright sturdy young fel- 
low, seemed quite unconscious of the seriousness 
of his condition. 

“ And what am I to do ? ” he asked patheti- 
cally. “ My brother does not even think I am 
ill. He says I am to rouse myself and come 
skating and tobogganing with him. Then I 
tell him that the Doctor says I must lie quietly 
in the sun. I have no one to take care of me, 
so I try to take a little care of myself, and then 
I am laughed at. It is bad enough to be ill ; 
but it is worse when those who might help you 
a little won’t even believe in your illness. I 
wrote home once and told them ; but they go 


CONCERNING THE CARETAKERS. 143 


by what he says ; and they, too, tell me to rouse 
myself.” 

His cheeks were sunken, his eyes were leaden. ^ 
There was no power in his voice, no vigour in 
his frame. He was just slipping quickly down 
the hill for want of proper care and under- 
standing. 

“ I don’t know whether I am much better off 
than you,” said an English lady, Mrs. Bridge- 
tower. “ I certainly have a trained nurse to 
look after me, but she is altogether too much 
for me, and she does just as she pleases. She is 
always ailing, or else pretends to be ; and she 
is always depressed. She grumbles from eight 
in the morning till nine at night. I have heard 
that she is cheerful with other people, but she 
^ never gives me the benefit of her brightness. 
Poor thing ! She does feel the cold very much, 
but it is not very cheering to see her crouching 
near the stove, with her arms almost clasping it ! 
When she is not talking of her own looks, all 
she says is : ‘ Oh, if I had only not come to 

Petershof ! ’ or, ‘ Why did I ever leave that hos- 


144 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


pital in Manchester ? ’ or, ‘ The cold is eating 
into the very marrow of my bones.’ A*t first she 
used to read to me ; but it was such a dismal 
performance that I could not bear to hear her. 
Why don’t I send her home ? Well, my hus- 
band will not hear of me being alone, and he 
thinks I might do worse than keep Nurse 
Frances. And perhaps I might.” 

“ I would give a good deal to have a sister 
like pretty Fraulein Muller has,” said little 
Fraulein Oberhof. “ She came to look after me 
the other day when I was alone. She has the 
kindest way about her. But when my sister 
came in, she was not pleased to find Fraulein 
Sophie Muller with me. She does not do any- 
thing for me herself, and she does not like any 
one else to do anything either. Still, she is very 
good to other people. She comes up from the 
theatre sometimes at half-past nine — that is the 
hour when I am just sleepy — and she stamps 
about the room and makes cornflour for the old 
Polish lady. Then off she goes, taking with her 
the cornflour together with my sleep. Once J 


CONCERNING THE CARETAKERS. 145 


complained, but she said I was irritable. You 
can’t think how teasing it is to hear the noise of 
the spoon stirring the cornflour just when you 
are feeling drowsy. You say to yourself, ‘Wik 
that cornflour never be made ? It seems to take 
centuries.* ” 

“ One could be more patient if it were being 
made for oneself,” said M. Lichinsky. ‘‘But 
at least, Fraulein, your sister does not quarrel 
with every one. You must be grateful for that 
mercy.” 

Even as he spoke, a stout lady thrust herself 
into the reading-room. She looked very hot 
and excited. She was M. Lichinsky’s mother. 
She spoke with a whirlwind of Polish words. 
It is sometimes difficult to know when these 
people are angry and when they are pleased. 
But there was no mistake about Mme. Lichin- 
sky. She was always angry. Her son rose 
from the sofa, and followed her to the door. 
Then he turned round to his confederates, and 
shrugged his shoulders. 

Another quarrel ! ” he said hopelessly 


CHAPTER XV. 


WHICH CONTAINS NOTHING. 

“WOU may have talent for other things,** 
Robert Allitsen said one day to Ber- 
nardino, “ but you certainly have no talent for 
photography. You have not made the slightest 
progress.’* 

“ I don’t at all agree with you,” Bernardine 
answered rather peevishly. “ I think I am get- 
ting on very well.” 

“You are no judge,” he said. “To begin 
with, you cannot focus properly. You have a 
crooked eye. I have told you that several 
times.” 

“You certainly have,” she put in. “You 
don’t let me forget that.” 

“Your photograph of that horrid little dan- 
seuse whom you like so much,” he said, “ii 


WHICH COH TAINS NOTHING, 147 

simply abominable. She looks like a fury. 
Well, she may be one for all I know, but in 
real life she has not the appearance of one.’* 

“ I think that is the best photograph I have 
done,” Bernardine said, highly indignant. She 
could tolerate his uppishness about subjects 
of which she knew far more than he did ; but 
his masterfulness about a subject of which she 
really knew nothing was more than she could 
bear with patience. He had not the tact to see 
that she was irritated. 

“ I don’t know about it being the best,” he 
said ; “ unless it is the best specimen of your 
inexperience. Looked at from that point of 
view, it does stand first.” 

She flushed crimson with temper. 

Nothing is easier than to make fun of 
others,” she said fiercely. “ It is the resource 
of the ignorant.” 

Then, after the fashion of angry women, 
having said her say, she stalked away. If there 
had been a door to bang, she would certainly 
have banged it. However, sl>e did what she 


148 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 

could under the circumstances : she pushed a 
curtain roughly aside, and passed into the 
concert-room, where every night of the season’s 
six months, a scratchy string orchestra enter- 
tained the Kurhaus guests. She left the Dis- 
agreeable Man standing in the passage. 

“ Dear me,” he said thoughtfully. And he 
stroked his chin. Then he trudged slowly up 
to his room. 

“ Dear me,” he said once more. 

Arrived in his bedroom, he began to read. 
But after a few minutes he shut his book, took 
the lamp to the looking-glass and brushed his 
hair. Then he put on a black coat and a white- 
silk tie. There was a speck of dust on the coat. 
He carefully removed that, and then extin- 
guished the lamp. 

On his way downstairs he met Marie, who 
gazed at him in astonishment. It was quite 
unusual for him to be seen again when he had 
once come up from table-d' hdte. She noticed the 
black coat and the white silk tie too, and reported 
on these eccentricities to her colleague Anna. 


WHICH CONTAINS NOTHING. 


149 


The Disagreeable Man meanwhile had reached 
the Concert Hall. He glanced around, and saw 
where Bernardine was sitting, and then chose a 
place in the opposite direction, quite by him- 
self. He looked somewhat like a dog who has 
been well beaten. Now and again he looked 
up to see whether she still kept her seat. The 
bad music was a great irritation to him. But he 
stayed on heroically. There was no reason why 
he should stay. Gradually, too, the audience 
began to thin. Still he lingered, always looking 
like a dog in punishment. 

At last Bernardine rose, and the Disagreeable 
Man rose too. He followed her humbly to the 
door. She turned and saw him. 

“ I am sorry I put you in a bad temper,” he 
said. “ It was stupid of me.” 

“I am sorry I got into a bad temper,” she 
answered, laughing. “ It was stupid of me.” 

“ I think I have said enough to apologize,” he 
said. “ It is a process I dislike very much.” 

And with that he wished her good-night and 
went to his room. 


150 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


But that was not the end of the matter, for 
the next day when he was taking his breakfast 
with her, he of his own accord returned to the 
subject. 

“ It was partly your own fault that I vexed you 
last night,” he said. “You have never before 
been touchy, and so I have become accustomed 
to saying what I choose. And it is not in my 
nature to be flattering.” 

“ That is a very truthful statement of yours,” 
she said, as she poured out her coffee. “ But I 
own I was touchy. And so I shall be again 
if you make such cutting remarks about my 
photographs.” 

“You have a crooked eye,” he said grimly. 
“Look there, for instance! You have poured 
your coffee outside the cup. Of course you can 
do as you like, but the usual custom is to pour 
it inside the cup.” 

They both laughed, and the good understand- 
ing between them was cemented again. 

“You are certainly getting better,” he said 
suddenly. “ I should not be surprised if you 
were able to write a book after all. Not that a 



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WHICH CONTAINS NOTHING. 


151 

new book is wanted. There are too many books 
as it is ; and not enough people to dust them. 
Still, it is not probable that you would be con- 
siderate enough to remember that. You will 
write your book.” 

Bernardine shook her head. 

“I don’t seem to care now,” she said. “I 
think I could now be content with a quieter 
and more useful part.” 

‘‘You will write your book,” he continued. 
“ Now listen to me. Whatever else you may 
do, don’t make your characters hold long dis- 
cussions with each other. In real life, people 
do not talk four pages at a time without 
stopping. Also, if you bring together two 
clever men, don’t make them talk cleverly. 
Clever people do not. It is only the stupid 
ones who think they must talk -cleverly all the 
time. And don’t detain your reader too long : 
if you must have a sunset, let it be a short one. 
I could give you many more hints which would 
be useful to you.” 

“ But why not use your own hints for your- 
self ? ” she suggested^' 


152 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

That would be selfish of me/' he said sol* 
cmnly. “ I wish you to profit by them.” 

‘‘ You are learning to be unselfish at a very 
rapid rate,” Bernardine said. 

At that moment Mrs. Reffold came into the 
breakfast-room, and, seeing Bernardine, gave her 
a stiff bow. 

“ I thought you and Mrs. Reffold were such 
friends,” Robert Allitsen said. 

Bernardine then told him of her last interview 
with Mrs. Reffold. 

‘‘Well, if you feel uncomfortable, it is as it 
should be,” he said . “ I don’t see what business 
you had to point out to Mrs. Reffold her duty. 
I dare say she knows it quite well, though she 
may not choose to do it. I am sure I should 
resent it, if any one pointed out my duty to me. 
Every one knows his own duty. And it is his 
own affair whether or not he does it.” 

“ I wonder if you are right,” Bernardine said. 
“ I never meant to presume ; but her indiffer- 
ence had exasperated me.” 

“ Why should you be exasperated about othei 


WHICH CONTAINS NOTHING. 


153 


people’s affairs ? ” he said. “ And why inter- 
fere at all ? " 

“ Being interested is not the same as being 
interfering,” she replied quickly. 

“ It is difficult to be the one without being 
the other,” he said. “ It requires a genius. 
There is a genius for being sympathetic as well 
as a genius for being good. And geniuses are 
few.” 

“ But I knew one,” Bernardine said. “ There 
was a friend to whom in the first days of my 
trouble I turned for sympathy. When others 
only irritated, she could soothe. She had only 
to come into my room, and all was well with me.” 

There were tears in Bernardine’s eyes as she 
spoke. 

‘‘Well,” said the Disagreeable Man kindly, 

and where is your genius now ? ” 

“ She went away, she and hers,” Bernardine 
said. “ And that was the end of that chapter.” 

“ Poor little child,” he said, half to himself. 
“ Don’t I too know something about the ending 
of such a chapter ? ” 


154 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


But Bernardine did not hear him ; she was 
thinking of her friend. She was thinking, as 
we all think, that those to whom in our suffering 
we turn for sympathy, become hallowed beings. 
Saints they may not be ; but for want of a 
better name, saints they are to us, gracious and 
lovely presences. The great time Eternity, the 
great space Death, could not rob them of their 
saintship ; for they were canonized by our 
bitterest tears. 

She was roused from her reverie by the Dis* 
agreeable Man, who got up, and pushed his 
chair noisily under the table. 

“Will you come and help me to develop 
some photographs ? ” he asked cheerily. “You 
do not need to have a straight eye for that ! ” 

Then as they went along together, he said : 

“ When we come to think about it seriously, 
it is rather absurd for us to expect to have 
uninterrupted stretches of happiness. Happi- 
ness falls to our share in separate detached bits ; 
and those of us who are wise, content ourselves 
with these broken fragments.” 


WHICH CONTAINS NOTHING. 


155 


“ But who is wise ? ” Bemardine asked. 
“ Why, we all expect to be happy. No one 
told us that we were to be happy. Still, though 
no one told us, it is the true instinct of human 
nature." 

“ It would be interesting to know at what 
particular period of evolution into our present 
glorious types we felt that instinct for the first 
time," he said. “ The sunshine must have had 
something to do with it. You see how a dog 
throws itself down in the sunshine ; the most 
wretched cur heaves a sigh of content then ; the 
sulkiest cat begins to purr." 

They were standing outside the room set 
apart for the photograph-maniacs of the Kur- 
haus. 

“ I cannot go into that horrid little hole," 
Bemardine said. “ And besides, I have prom- 
ised to play chess with the Swedish professor. 
And after that I am going to photograph Marie. 
I promised Warli I would." 

The Disagreeable Man smiled grimly. 

‘‘ I hope he will be able to recognize her ! ” he 


156 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 

said. Then, feeling that he was on dangerous 
ground, he added quickly : 

‘‘ If you want any more plates, I can oblige 
you.” 

On her way to her room she stopped to talk 
to pretty Fraulein Muller, who was in high 
spirits, having had an excellent report from the 
Doctor. Fraulein Muller always insisted on 
talking English with Bernardine ; and as het 
knowledge of it was limited, a certain amount 
of imagination was necessary to enable her to be 
understood. 

‘‘ Ah, Miss Holme,” she said, “ I have de- 
ceived an exquisite report from the Doctor.” 

“You are looking ever so well,” Bernardine 
said. “ And the love-making with the Spanish 
gentleman goes on well, too ? ” 

“ Ach ! ” was the merry answer. “ That is 
your inventory ! I am quite indolent to him ! ” 

At that moment the Spanish gentleman came 
out of the Kurhaus flower-shop, with a beautiful 
bouquet of flowers. 

“ Mademoiselle,” he said, handing them to 


WHICH CONTAINS NOTHING. 


157 


Fraulein Muller, and at the same time putting 
his hand to his heart. He had not noticed Ber- 
nardine at first, and when he saw her, he became 
somewhat confused. She smiled at them both, 
and escaped into the flower-shop, which was 
situated in one of the covered passages connect- 
ing the mother-building with the dependencies. 
Herr Schmidt, the gardener, was making a wreath. 
His favourite companion, a saffron cat, was 
playing with the wire. Schmidt was rather an 
ill-tempered man, but he liked Bernardine. 

“ I have put these violets aside for you, Fraii- 
lein,” he said, in his sulky way. “ I meant to 
have sent them to your room, but have been in- 
terrupted in my work.” 

“ You spoil me with your gifts,” she said. 

“ You spoil my cat with the milk,” he replied, 
looking up from his work. 

“ That is a beautiful wreath you are making, 
Herr Schmidt,” she said. ‘‘ Who has died ? 
Any one in the Kurhaus ? ” 

**' No, Fraulein. But I ought to keep my door 
locked when I make these wreaths. People get 


158 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


frightened, and think they, too, are going to die. 
Shall you be frightened, I wonder ? ” 

“ No, I believe not,” she answered as she 
took possession of her violets, and stroked the 
saffron cat. “ But I am glad no one has died 
here.” 

“ It is for a young, beautiful lady,” he said. 
“ She was in the Kurhaus two years ago. I 
Hked her. So I am taking extra pains. She 
did not care for the flowers to be wired. So I 
am trying my best without the wire. But it is 
difficult.” 

She left him to his work, and went away, think- 
ing. All the time she had now been in Petershof 
had not sufficed to make her indifferent to the 
sadness of her surroundings. In vain the Dis- 
agreeable Man’s preachings, in vain her own 
reasonings with herself. 

These people here who suffered, and faded, 
and passed away, who were they to her ? 

Why should the faintest shadow steal across 
her soul on account of them ? 

There was no reason. And still she felt for 


WHICH CONTAINS NOTHING. 159 

them all, she who in the old days would have 
thought it waste of time to spare a moment’s 
reflection on anything so unimportant as the 
sufferings of an individual human being. 

And the bridge between her former and her 
present self was her own illness. 

What dull-minded sheep we must all be, how 
lacking in the very elements of imagination, 
since we are only able to learn by personal ex- 
perience of grief and suffering, something about 
the suffering and grief of others ! 

Yea, how the dogs must wonder at us : those 
dogs who know when we are in pain or trouble, 
and nestle nearer to us. 

So Bernardine reached her own door. She 
heard her name called, and, turning round, saw 
Mrs. Reffold. There was a scared look on her 
beautiful face. 

“ Miss Holme,” she said, ** I have been sent 
for — I dare n’t go to him alone — I want you — he 
is worse. I am ” 

Bernardine took her hand, and the two women 
hurried away in silence. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


WHEN THE SOUL KNOWS ITS OWN REMORSE. 


jgERNARDINE had seen Mr. Reffold the 
previous day.' She had sat by his side and 
held his hand. He had smiled at her many times, 
but he only spoke once. 

“ Little Brick,” he whispered — for his voice 
had become nothing but a whisper — “ I remem- 
ber all you told me. God bless you. But what 
a long time it does take to die.” 

But that was yesterday. 

The lane had come to an ending at last, and Mr. 
Reffold lay dead. 

They bore him to the little mortuary chapel. 
And Bernardine stayed with Mrs. Reffold, who 
seemed afraid to be alone. She clung to Ber* 
nardine’s hand. 


IVHEN THE SOUL HNOWS REMORSE. i6l 


‘‘ No, no,” she said excitedly, “ you must not 
go ! I can’t bear to be alone : you must stay 
with me.” 

She expressed no sorrow, no regret. She did 
not even speak his name. She just sat nursing 
her beautiful face. 

Once or twice Bernardine tried to slip away. 
This waiting about was a strain on her, and she 
felt that she was doing no good. 

But each time Mrs. Reffold looked up and 
prevented her. 

No, no,” she said. “ I can’t bear myself 
without you. I must have you near me. Why 
should you leave me ? ” 

So Bernardine lingered. She tried to read a 
book which lay on the table. She counted the 
lines and dots on the wall-paper. She thought 
about the dead man ; and about the living 
woman. She had pitied him ; but when she 
looked at the stricken face of his wife, Bernar- 
dine’s whole heart rose up in pity for her. Re- 
morse would come, although it might not remain 
long. The soul would see itself face to face for 


i 62 ships that pass IN THE NIGHT. 

one brief moment ; and then forget its own 
likeness. 

,But for the moment — ^what a weight of suffer- 
ing, what a whole century of agony ! 

Bernardine grew very tender for Mrs. Reffold : 
she bent over the sofa, and fondled the beauti- 
ful face. 

“ Mrs. Reffold ” she whispered. 

That was all she said : but it was enough. 
Mrs. Reffold burst into an agony of tears. 

“ Oh, Miss Holme,” she sobbed, ** and I was 
not even kind to him ! And now it is too late. 
How can I ever bear myself ? ” 

And then it was that the soul knew its own 


remorse. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


A RETURN TO OLD PASTURES. 

OHE had left him alone and neglected for 
whole hours when he was alive. And now 
when he was dead, and it probably mattered 
little to him where he was laid, it was some time 
before she could make up her mind to leave him 
in the lonely little Petershof cemetery. 

“ It will be so dreary for him there,” she said 
to the Doctor. 

“ Not so dreary as you made it for him here,” 
thought the Doctor. 

But he did not say that : he just urged her 
quietly to have her husband buried in Petershof ; 
and she yielded. 

So they laid him to rest in the dreary 
cemetery. 


i 64 ships that pass IN THE NIGHT. 


Bernardine went to the funeral, much against 
the Disagreeable Man’s wish. 

‘‘ You are looking like a ghost yourself,” he 
said to her. “ Come out with me into the coun- 
try instead.” 

But she shook her head. 

“ Another day,” she said. “ And Mrs. Reffold 
wants me. I can’t leave her alone, for she is so 
miserable.” 

The Disagreeable Man shrugged his shoul- 
ders, and went off by himself. 

Mrs. Reffold clung very much to Bernardine 
those last days before she left Petershof. She 
had decided to go to Wiesbaden, where she had 
relations ; and she invited Bernardine to go 
with her : it was more than that, she almost 
begged her. Bernardine refused. 

“ I have been from England nearly five 
months,” she said, “ and my money is coming 
to an end. I must go back and work.” 

“ Then come away with me as my compan- 
ion,” Mrs. Reffold suggested. “ And I will pay 
you a handsome salary.” 


A RETURN TO OLD PASTURES. 165 


Bernardine could not be persuaded. 

“ No,” she said. “ I could not earn money 
that way : it would not suit me. And besides, 
you would not care to be a long time with me : 
you would soon tire of me. You think you 
would like to have me with you now. But I 
know how it would be : you would be sorry 
and so should I. So let us part as we are now : 
you going your way, and I going mine. We 
live in different worlds, Mrs. Reffold : it would 
be as senseless for me to venture into yours, as 
for you to come into mine. Do you think I am 
unkind ? ” 

So they parted. Mrs. Reffold had spoken 
no word of affection to Bernardine, but at the 
station, as she bent down to kiss her, she 
whispered : 

I know you will not think too hardly of me. 
Still, will you promise me ? And if you are 
ever in trouble, and I can help you, will you 
write to me ’ ” 

And Bernardine promised. 

When she got back to her room, she found a 


i66 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

small packet on her table. It contained Mr. 
Reffold’s watch-chain. She had so often seen 
him playing with it. There was a little piece of 
paper enclosed with it, and Mr. Reffold had 
written on it some two months ago : Give my 
watch-chain to Little Brick, if she will sacrifice 
a little of her pride, and accept the gift" 
Bernardine unfastened her watch from the 
black hair cord, and attached it instead to Mr. 
Reffold’s massive gold chain. 

As she sat there fiddling with it, the idea 
seized her that she would be all the better for a 
day’s outing. At first she thought she would 
go alone, and then she decided to ask Robert 
Allitsen. She learnt from Marie that he was in 
the dark room, and she hastened down. She 
knocked several times before there was any 
answer. 

“ I can’t be disturbed just now," he said. 
“ Who is it ? " 

I can’t shout to you," she said. 

The Disagreeable Man opened the door of the 
dark room. 




THE MELTING OF THE SNOWS HAD BEGUN 


t i 


>» 


A RETURN TO OLD PASTURES, 167 


“ My negatives will be spoilt,” he said gruffly. 
Then seeing Bernardine standing there, he 
added : 

“ Why, you look as though you wanted some 
brandy.” 

** No,” she said, smiling at his sudden change 
of manner. “ I want fresh air, a sledge drive, 
and a day’s outing. Will you come ? ” 

He made no answer, and retired once more 
into the dark room. Then he came out with 
his camera. 

“We will go to that inn again,” he said 
cheerily. “ I want to take the photographs to 
those peasants.” 

In half an hour’s time they were on their way. 
It was the same drive as before : and since then, 
Bernardine had seen more of the country, and 
was more accustomed to the wonderful white 
scenery : but still the “ white presences ” 
awed her, and still the deep silence held her. 
It was the same scene, and yet not the same 
either, for the season was now far advanced, 
and the melting of the snows had begun. In 


i68 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


the far distance the whiteness seemed as before ; 
but on the slopes near at hand, the green was 
beginning to assert itself, and some of the 
great trees had cast off their heavy burdens, 
and appeared more gloomy in their "reedom 
than in the days of their snow-bondage. The 
roads were no longer quite so even as before ; 
the sledge glided along when it could, and 
bumped along when it must. Still, there was 
sufficient snow left to make the drive possible, 
and even pleasant. 

The two companions were quiet. Once only 
the Disagreeable Man made a remark, and 
then he said : 

“ I am afraid my negatives will be spoilt.” 

** You said that before,” Bernardine remarked. 

'‘Well, I say it again,” he answered in his 
grim way. 

Then came a long pause. 

“The best part of the winter is over,” he 
said. “We may have some more snow ; but it 
is more probable that we shall not. It is not 
enjoyable being here during the melting time.” 

•'Well, in any case I should not be here 


A RETURN TO OLD PASTURES. 169 

much longer,” she said ; ** and for a simple 
reason too. I have nearly come to the end of 
my money. I shall have to go back and set to 
work again. I should not have been able to 
give myself this chance, but that my uncle 
spared me some of his money, to which I added 
my savings.” 

“ Are you badly off ? ” the Disagreeable Man 
asked rather timidly. 

“ I have very few wants,” she answered 
brightly. “ And wealth is only a relative word, 
after alV* 

“ It is a pity that you should go back to 
work so soon,** he said half to himself. ‘‘ You 
are only just better ; and it is easy to lose what 
one has gained.** 

“ Oh, I am not likely to lose,’* she answered ; 

but I shall be careful this time. I shall do a 
little teaching, and perhaps a little writing ; 
not much — you need not be vexed. I shall 
not try to pick up the other threads yet. I 
shall not be political, nor educational, not 
anything else great.” 

“ If you call politics or education great,” he 


170 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 

said. And heaven defend me from political 
or highly educated women 1 

“You say that because you know nothing 
about them,” she said sharply. 

“ Thank you,” he replied. “ I have met them 
quite often enough.” 

“That was probably some time ago,” she 
said rather heartlessly. “ If you have lived 
here so long, how can you judge of the changes 
which go on in the world outside Petershof ? ” 

“ If I have lived here so long,” he repeated, 
in the bitterness of his heart. 

Bernardine did not notice : she was on a 
subject which always excited her. 

“ I don’t know so much about the political 
women,” she said, “ but I do know about the 
higher education people. The writers who rail 
against the women of this date are really 
describing the women of ten years ago. Why, 
the Girton girl of ten years ago seems a different 
creation from the Girton girl of to-day. Yet 
the latter has been the steady outgrowth oi 
the former.” 


A RETURN TO OLD PASTURES. 171 


** And the difference between them ? ” asked 
the Disagreeable Man ; “ since you pride your- 
self on being so well informed.’* 

“ The Girton girl of ten years ago,’* said 
Bernardine, was a sombre, spectacled person, 
carelessly and dowdily dressed, who gave 
herself up to wisdom and despised every one 
who did not know the Agamemnon by heart. 
She was probably not lovable ; but she 
deserves to be honoured and thankfully remem- 
bered. She fought for woman’s right to be 
well educated, and I cannot bear to hear her 
slighted. The fresh-hearted young girl who 
nowadays plays a good game of tennis, and 
takes a high place in the Classical or Mathe- 
matical Tripos, and is book learned, without 

being bookish, and ” 

What other virtues are left, I wonder ? ’* he 
interrupted. 

“ And who does not scorn to take a pride in 
her looks because she happens to take a pride in 
her books,” continued Bernardine, looking at 
the Disagreeable Man, and not seeming to see 


172 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 

him : “ she is what she is by reason of that 
grave and loveless woman who won the battle 
for her.” 

Here she paused. 

‘‘ But how ridiculous for me to talk to you in 
this way ! ” she said. “ It is not likely that you 
would be interested in the widening out of 
women’s lives.” 

And pray why not ? ” he asked. ** Have I 
been on the shelf too long .> ” 

** I think you would not have been interested 
even if you had never been on the shelf,” she 
said frankly. “You are not the type of man to 
be generous to woman.” 

“ May I ask one little question of you, which 
shall conclude this subject,” he said, “ since here 
we are already at the Gasthaus : to which type 
of learned woman do you lay claim to belong ? 

Bernardine laughed. 

“That I leave to your own powers of dis- 
crimination,” she said, and then added, if 
you have any.” 

And that was the end of the matter, for the 


A RETURN TO OLD PASTURES, 173 


Word spread about that Herr Allitsen had 
arrived, and every one turned out to give the 
two guests greeting. Frau Steinhart smothered 
Bernardine with motherly tenderness, and 
whispered in her ear : 

“You are betrothed now, liebes Fraulein ? 
Ach, I am sure of it.’* 

But Bernardine smiled and shook her head, 
and went to greet the others who crowded round 
them ; and at last poor Catharina drew near too, 
holding Bernardine’s hand lovingly within her 
own. Then Hans, Liza’s lover, came upon the 
scene, and Liza told the Disagreeable Man that 
she and Hans were to be married in a month’s 
time. And the Disagreeable Man, much to Ber- 
nardine’s amazement, drew from his pocket a 
small parcel, which he confided to Liza’s care. 
Every one pressed round her while she opened 
it, and found what she had so often wished for, 
a silver watch and chain. 

“ Ach,” she cried, “ how heavenly ! How all 
the girls here will envy me ! How angry my 
dear friend Susanna will be ! ” 


174 SHIPS THA T PASS IN’ THE NIGHT 

Then there were the photographs to be ex- 
amined. 

Liza looked with stubborn disapproval on the 
pictures of herself in her working-dress. But she 
did not conceal her admiration of the portraits 
which showed her to the world in her best finery. 

“ Ach ! ” she cried, “ this is something like a 
photograph ! " 

The Disagreeable Man grunted, but behaved 
after the fashion of a hero, claiming, however, a 
little silent sympathy from Bernardine. 

It was a pleasant, homely scene : and Bernar- 
dine, who felt quite at her ease amongst these 
people chatted away with them as though she 
had known them all her life. 

Then Frau Steinhart suddenly remembered 
that her guests needed some food, and Liza was 
despatched to her duties as cook ; though it was 
some time before she could be induced to leave 
off looking at the photographs. 

‘‘Take them with you, Liza,*’ said the Dis- 
agreeable Man. “ Then we shall get our meal 
all the quicker.** 


A RETURN TO OLD PASTURES. 175 

She ran off laughing, and finally Bernardine 
found herself alone with Catharina. 

** Liza is very happy,” she said to Bernardine. 
‘‘ She loves and is loved.” 

“ That is the greatest happiness,” Bernardine 
said half to herself. 

‘‘ Fraulein knows?” Catharina asked eagerly. 

Bernardine looked wistfully at her companion. 

“ No, Catharina,” she said. “ I have only 
heard and read and seen.” 

“Then you cannot understand.” Catharina 
said almost proudly. “ But I understand.” 

She spoke no more after that, but took up 
her knitting, and watched Bernardine playing 
with the kittens. She was playing with the kit- 
tens, and she was thinking ; and all the time 
she felt conscious that this peasant woman, 
stricken in mind and body, was pitying her be- 
cause that great happiness of loving and being 
loved had not come into her life. It had 
seemed something apart from her ; she had 
never even wanted it. She had wished to stand 
alone, like a little rock out at sea. 


176 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


And now ? 

In a few minutes the Disagreeable Man and 
she sat down to their meal. In spite of her ex« 
citement, Liza managed to prepare everything 
nicely ; though when she was making the ome- 
lette aux fines herbeSy she had to be kept guarded 
lest she might run off to have another look at 
the silver watch and the photographs of herself 
in her finest frock ! 

Then Bernardine and Robert Allitsen drank 
to the health of Hans and Liza : and then came 
the time of reckoning. When he was paying 
the bill, Frau Steinhart, having given him the 
change, said coaxingly : 

Last time, you and Fraulein each paid a 
share : to-day you pay all. Then perhaps you 
are betrothed at last, dear Herr Allitsen ? Ach, 
how the old Hausfrau wishes you happiness ! 
Who deserves to be happy, if it is not our dear 
Herr Allitsen?" 

You have given me twenty centimes too 
much," he said quietly. “You have your head 


RETURN TO OLD PASTURES, 177 

SO full of other things that you cannot reckon 
properly.” 

But seeing that she looked troubled lest she 
might have offended him, he added quickly : 

‘‘ When I am betrothed, good little old house- 
mother, you shall be the first to know.” 

And she had to be content with that. She 
asked no more questions of either of them : but 
she was terribly disappointed. There was some- 
thing a little comical in her disappointment ; 
but Robert Allitsen was not amused at it, as he 
had been on a former occasion. As he leaned 
back in the sledge, with the same girl for his 
companion, he recalled his feelings. He had 
been astonished and amused, and perhaps a 
little shy, and a great deal relieved that she had 
been sensible enough to be amused too. 

And now ? 

They had been constantly together for many 
months : he who had never cared before for 
companionship, had found himself turning more 

and more to her. 

19 


178 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

And now he was going to lose her. 

He looked up once or twice to make sure 
that she was still by his side : she sat there so 
quietly. At last he spoke in his usual grufl 
Way. 

“ Have you exhausted all your eloquence in 
your oration about learned women 1 ” he asked. 

“No, I am reserving it for a better audience," 
she answered, trying to be bright. But she was 
not bright. 

“ I believe you came out to the country to-day 
to seek for cheerfulness," he said after a pause. 
“ Have you found it ? " 

“ I do not know," she said. “ It takes me 
some time to recover from shocks ; and Mr. 
Reffold’s death was a sorrow to me. What do 
you think about death ? Have you any theories 
about life and death, and the bridge between 
them ? Could you say anything to help 
one?" 

“ Nothing," he answered. “ Who could ? And 
by what means ? " 

“ Has there been no value in philosophy,** 


A RETURN TO OLD PASTURES, tjq 


she asked, “ and the medit;ations of learned 
men ? 

“ Philosophy ! ” he sneered. “ What has it 
done for us ? It has taught us some processes 
of the mind’s working ; taught us a few wonder- 
ful things which interest the few ; but the cen- 
turies have come and gone, and the only thing 
which the whole human race pants to know, 
remains unknown : our beloved ones, shall we 
meet them, and how ? — the great secret of the 
universe. We ask for bread, and these philoso- 
phers give us a stone. What help could come 
from them : or from any one ? Death is simply, 
one of the hard facts of life.” 

“ And the greatest evil,” she said. 

“We weave our romances about the next 
world,” he continued ; “ and any one who has 
a fresh romance to relate, or an old one dressed 
up in new language, will be listened to, and 
welcomed. That helps some people for a little 
while ; and when the charm of the romance is 
over, then they are ready for another, perhaps 
more fantastic than the last. But the plot is 


t8o ships that pass IN THE NIGHT, 

always the same : our beloved ones, shall we 
meet them, and how ? Is n’t it pitiful ? Why 
cannot we be more impersonal ? These puny, 
petty minds of ours ! When will they learn to 
expand ? ” 

^‘Why should we learn to be more imper- 
sonal ? ” she said. “ There was a time when I 
felt like that ; but now I have learnt something 
better ; that we need not be ashamed of being 
human ; above all, of having the best of human 
instincts, love, and the passionate wish for its 
continuance, and the unceasing grief at its with- 
drawal. There is no indignity in this ; nor any 
trace of weakmindedness in our restless craving 
to know about the Hereafter, and the possi- 
bilities of meeting again those whom we have 
lost here. It is right, and natural, and lovely 
that it should be the most important question. 
I know that many will say that there are 
weightier questions : they say so, but do they 
think so ? Do we want to know first and fore- 
most whether we shall do our work better else- 
where : whether we shall be endowed with more 


A RETURN TO OLD PASTURES. i8i 


wisdom : whether, as poor Mr. Reffold said, we 
shall be glad to behave less like curs, and more 
like heroes ? These questions come in, but 
they can be put aside. The other question can 
never be put on one side. If that were to be- 
come possible, it would only be so because the 
human heart had lost the best part of itself, its 
own humanity. We shall go on building our 
bridge between life and death, each one for 
himself. When we see that it is not strong 
enough, we shall break it down and build 
another. We shall watch other people building 
their bridges. We shall imitate, or criticise, or 
condemn. But as time goes on, we shall learn 
not to interfere, we shall know that one bridge 
is probably as good as the other ; and that the 
greatest value of them all has been in the build- 
ing of them. It does not matter what we build, 
but build we must : you, and I, and every 
one.” 

“ I have long ceased to build my bridge,” the 
Disagreeable Man said. 

“It is ^ almost unconscious process,” she 


i 82 ships that pass in the night 


said. Perhaps you are still at work, or perhaps 
you are resting.” 

He shrugged his shoulders, and the two com- 
rades fell into silence again. 

They were within two miles of Petershof, 
when he broke the silence : there was something 
vvonderfully gentle in his voice. 

“You little thing,” he said, “we are nearing 
home, and I have something to ask you. It is 
easier for me to ask here in the free open 
country, where the space seems to give us 
breathing room for our cramped lungs and 
minds.” 

“ Well,” she said kindly ; she wondered what 
he could have to say. 

“ I am a little nervous of offending you,” 
he continued, “ and yet I trust you. It is 
only this. You said you had come to the end of 
your money, and that you must go home. It 
seems a pity when you are getting better. I have 
so much more than I need. I don’t offer it to 
you as a gift, but I thought if you wished to 
stay longer, a loan from me would not be quite 


A RETURN TO OLD PASTURES. i8| 


impossible to you. You could repay as quickly 
or as slowly as was convenient to you, and I 
should only be grateful and 

He stopped suddenly. 

The tears had gathered in Bernardine's eyes ; 
her hajid rested for one moment on his arm. 

“ Mr. Allitsen,” she said, “ you did well to 
trust me. But I could not borrow money of 
any one, unless I was obliged. If I could of 
any one, it would have been of you. It is not 
a month ago since I was a little anxious about 
money ; my remittances did not come. I 
thought then that if obliged to ask for tempor- 
ary help, I should come to you : so you see if 
you have trusted me, I, too, have trusted you.’* 

A smile passed over the Disagreeable Man’s 
face, one of his rare, beautiful smiles. 

“ Supposing you change your mind,” he said 
quietly, “ you will not find that I have changed 
mine.” 

Then a few minutes brought them back to 
Petershof. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


A BETROTHAL. 

T T E had loved her so patiently, and now he 
felt that he must have his answer. It was 
only fair to her, and to himself too, that he should 
know exactly where he stood in her affections. 
She had certainly given him little signs here 
and there, which had made him believe that 
she was not indifferent to his admiration. 
Little signs were all very well for a short time ; 
but meanwhile the season was coming to an 
end : she had told him that she was going 
back to her work at home. And then perhaps 
he would lose her altogether. It would not be 
safe now for him to delay a single day longer. 
So the little postman armed himself with 
courage. 

Waili*s brain was muddled that day. He 


A BETROTHAL. 


185 


who prided himself upon knowing the names of 
all the guests in Petershof, made the most ab- 
surd mistakes about people and letters too ; and 
received in acknowledgment of his stupidity a 
series of scoldings which would have unnerved 
a stronger person than the little hunchback 
postman. 

In fact, he ceased to care how he gave out 
the letters : all the envelopes seemed to have 
the same name on them : Marie Truog. Every 
word which he tried to decipher turned to that ; 
so finally he tried no more, leaving the destina- 
tion of the letter to be decided by the impulse 
of the moment. At last he arrived at that 
quarter of the Kurhaus where Marie held sway. 
He heard her singing in her pantry. Suddenly 
she was summoned downstairs by an impatient 
bell-ringer, and on her return found Warli wait- 
ing in the passage. 

What a goose you are ! ” she cried, throwing 
a letter at him ; “ you have left the wrong letter 
at No. 82.’* 

Then some one else rang, and Marie hurried 


i86 SHIPS THAT PASS IH THE NIGHT. 


off again. She came back with another letter 
in her hand, and found Warli sitting in her 
pantry. 

** The wrong letter left at No. 54," she said, 
“ and Madame in a horrid temper in conse- 
quence. What a nuisance you are to-day, 
Warli ! Can’t you read ? Here, give the re- 
maining letters to me. I ’ll sort them.” 

Warli took off his little round hat, and wiped 
his forehead. 

“ I can’t read to-day, Marie,” he said ; 
“ something has gone wrong with me. Every 
name I look at, turns to Marie Truog. I ought 
to have brought every one of the letters to you. 
But I knew they could not be all for you, though 
you have so many admirers. For they would 
not be likely to write at the same time, to catch 
the same post.” 

“ It would be very dull if they did,” said 
Marie, who was polishing some water-bottles 
with more diligence than was usual or even 
necessary. 

“ But I am the one who loves you, Marie- 


A BETROTHAL, 


187 


chen,** the little postman said. “ I have always 
loved you ever since I c - 1 remember. I am not 
much to look at, Mariecl zn : the binding of the 
book is not beautiful, but the book itself is not 
a bad book.” 

Marie went on polishing the water-bottles. 
Then she held them up to the light to admire 
their unwonted cleanness. 

“ I don’t plead for myself,” continued Warli. 

If you don’t love me, that is the end of the 
matter. But if you do love me, Mariechen, and 
will marry me, you won’t be unhappy. Now I 
have said all.” 

Marie put down the water-bottles, and turned 
to Warli. 

You have been a long time in telling me,’* 
she said, poutingly. “ Why did n’t you tell me 
three months ago ? It ’s too late now.” 

“ Oh, Mariechen ! ” said the little postman, 
seizing her hand and covering it with kisses ; 
“you love some one else — you are already 
betrothed 7 And now it ’s too late, and you love 
some one else ! '' 


m SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 

“ I never said I loved some one else,” Marie 
replied ; “ I only said it was too late. Why, it 
must be nearly five o’clock, and my lamps are 
hot yet ready. I have n’t a moment to spare. 
Dear me, and there is no oil in the can ; no, not 
one little drop ! ” 

“ The devil take the oil ! ” exclaimed Warli, 
snatching the can out of her hands. ‘‘ What do 
I want to know about the oil in the can ? I 
want to know about the love in your heart. Oh, 
Mariechen, don’t keep me waiting like this ! 
Just tell me if you love me, and make me the 
merriest soul in all Switzerland.” 

“ Must I tell the truth,” she said, in a most 
melancholy tone of voice ; “ the truth and 
nothing else? Well, Warli, if you must know 

. . . . how I grieve to hurt you ” Warli’s 

heart sank, the tears came into his eyes. “ But 
since it must be the truth, and nothing else,” 
continued the torturer, “well, Fritz .... I 
love you ! ” 

A few minutes afterwards, the Disagreeable 
Man, having failed to attract any notice by ring- 


A BETROTHAL. 


189 


ing, descended to Marie’s pantry, to fetch his 
lamp. He discovered Warli embracing his be- 
trothed. 

“ I am sorry to intrude,” he said grimly, and 
he retreated at once. But directly afterwards 
he came back. 

** The matron has just come upstairs,” he said. 
And he hurried away. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


SHIPS THAT SPEAK EACH OTHER IN PASSING. 

IVA ANY of the guests in the foreign quarter 
had made a start downwards into the 
plains ; and the Kurhaus itself, though still well 
filled with visitors, was every week losing some 
of its invalids. A few of the tables looked deso- 
late, and some were not occupied at all, the 
lingerers having chosen, now that their party was 
broken up, to seek the refuge of another table. 
So that many stragglers found their way to the 
English dining-board, each bringing with him 
his own national bad manners, and causing 
much annoyance to the Disagreeable Man, who 
was a true John Bull in his contempt of all 
foreigners. The English table was, so he said, 
like England herself : the haven of other nation's 
offscourings. 



GOAT HOUSE. 






SHIPS THAT SPEAK EACH OTHER. 191 


There were several other signs, too, that the 
season was far advanced. The food had fallen 
off in quality and quantity. The invalids, some 
of them better and some of them worse, had 
become impatient. And plans were being dis- 
cussed, where formerly temperatures and coughs 
and general symptoms were the usual subjects 
of conversation ! The caretakers, too, were in 
a state of agitation ; some few keenly anxious to 
be. off to new pastures ; and others, who had 
perhaps formed attachments, an occurrence not 
unusual in Petershof, were wishing to holdback 
time with both hands, and were therefore de- 
lighted that the weather, which had not yet 
broken up, gave no legitimate excuse for imme- 
diate departure. 

Pretty Fraulein Muller had gone, leaving her 
Spanish gentleman quite disconsolate for the 
time being. The French Marchioness had re- 
turned to the Parisian circles where she was 
celebrated for all the domestic virtues from 
which she had been taking such a prolonged 
holiday in Petershof. The little French dan- 


IQ2 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


seuse and her poodle had left for Monte Carlo. 
M. Lichinsky and his mother passed on to the 
Tyrol, where Madame would no doubt have 
plenty of opportunities for quarrelling : or not 
finding them, would certainly make them with- 
out any delay, by this means keeping herself in 
good spirits and her son in bad health. There 
were some, too, who had hurried oif without 
paying their Doctors : being of course those who 
Aad received the greatest attention, and who had 
expressed the greatest gratitude in their time 
of trouble, but who were of opinion that thank- 
fulness could very well take the place of francs : 
an opinion not entirely shared by the Doctors 
themselves. 

The Swedish professor had betaken himself 
off, with his chessmen and his chessboard. The 
little Polish governess who clutched so eagerly 
at her paltry winnings, caressing those centimes 
with the same fondness and fever that a greatei 
gambler grasps his thousands of francs, she had 
left too ; and, indeed, most of Bernardine’s ac- 
quaintances had gone their several ways, aftei 


SHIPS THAT SPEAK EACH OTHER. 193 


SIX months' constant intercourse and com- 
panionship, saying good-bye with the same 
indifference, as though they were saying good- 
morning or good-afternoon. 

This cold-heartedness struck Bernardine more 
than once, and she spoke of it to Robert Allitsen. 
It was the day before her own departure, and 
she had gone down with him to the restaurant, 
and sat sipping her coffee, and making her 
complaint. 

“Such indifference is astonishing, and it is 
sad too. I cannot understand it,” she said. 

“ That is because you are a goose,” he re- 
plied, pouring out some more coffee for himself, 
and as an after thought, for her too. “You 
pretend to know something about the human 
heart, and yet you do not seem to grasp the fact 
that most of us are very little interested in other 
people : they for us and we for them can spare 
only a small fraction of time and attention. 
We may, perhaps, think to the contrary, believ- 
ing that we occupy an important position 
in their lives ; until one day, when we are feeh 


194 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


ing most confident of our value, we see an un« 
mistakable sign, given quite unconsciously by 
our friends, that we are after all nothing to 
them : we can be done without, put on one side, 
and forgotten when not present. Then," if we 
are foolish, we are wounded by this discovery, 
and we draw back into ourselves. But if we 
are wise, we draw back into ourselves without 
being wounded : recognizing as fair and reason- 
able that people can only have time and atten- 
tion for their immediate belongings. Isolated 
persons have to learn this lesson sooner or 
later ; and the sooner they do learn it the 
better.” 

“ And you,” she asked, “ you have learnt this 
lesson ? ” 

‘‘Long ago,” he said decidedly. 

“You take a hard view of life,” she said. 

“ Life has not been very bright for me,” he 
answered. “ But I own that I have not culti- 
vated my garden. And now it is too late : the 
weeds have sprung up everywhere. Once or 
twice I have thought lately that I would begin to 


SHIPS THAT SPEAK EACH OTHEP, 195 


clear away the weeds, but I have not the courage 
now. And perhaps it does not matter much.” 

“ I think it does matter,” she said gently. 
‘ But I am no better than you, for I have not 
cultivated my gardfen.” 

It would not be such a difficult business for 
you as for me,” she said, smiling sadly. 

They left the restaurant and sauntered out 
together. 

“ And to-morrow you will be gone,” he said. 

“ I shall miss you,” Bernardine said. 

“ That is simply a question of time,” he re- 
marked. I shall probably miss you at first. 
But we adjust ourselves easily to altered circum- 
stances; mercifully. A few days, a few weeks 
at most, and then that state of becoming accus- 
tomed, called by pious folk, resignation.” 

‘‘Then you think that the every-day com- 
panionship, the every-day exchange of thoughts 
and ideas, counts for little or nothing?” she 
asked. 

“ That is about the colour of it,” he answered, 
in his old gruff way. 


196 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

She thought of his words when she was pack- 
ing ; the many pleasant hours were to count for 
nothing ; for nothing the little bits of fun, the 
little displays of temper and vexation, the 
snatches of serious talk, the contradictions, and 
all the petty details of six months’ close com- 
panionship. 

He was not different from the others who had 
parted from her so lightly. No wonder, then, 
that he could sympathize with them. 

That last night at Petershof, Bernardine hard- 
ened her heart against the Disagreeable Man. 

“ I am glad I am able to do so,” she said 
to herself. “ It makes it easier for me to go.” 

Then the vision of a forlorn figure rose before 
her. And the little hard heart softened at 
once. 

In the morning they breakfasted together as 
usual. There was scarcely any conversation 
between them. He asked for her address, and 
she told him that she was going back to her 
uncle who kept the second-hand book-shop in 
Stone Street. 


SHIPS THAT SPEAH EACH OTHER, 197 


“I will send you a guide-book from the 
Tyrol,” he explained. ‘‘ I shall be going there 
in a week or two to see my mother.” 

I hope you will find her in good health,” she 
said. 

Then it suddenly flashed across her mind 
that he had told her about his one great 
sacrifice for his mother’s sake. She looked up 
at him, and he met her glance without flinching. 

He said good-bye to her at the foot of the 
staircase. 

It was the first time she had ever shaken 
hands with him. 

“ Good-bye,” he said gently. Good luck to 
you.” 

“ Good-bye,” she answered. 

He went up the stairs, and turned round as 
though he wished to say something more. But 
he changed his mind, and kept his own counsel. 

An hour later Bernardine left Petershof. 
Only the concierge of the Kurhaus saw her off 
at the station. 


CHAPTER XX. 


A LOVE-LETTER. 

•^WO days after Bernardine had left Petershof, 
the snows began to melt. Nothing could 
be drearier than that process : nothing more 
desolate than the outlook. 

The Disagreeable Man sat in his bedroom 
trying to read Carpenter’s Anatomy, It failed 
to hold him. Then he looked out of the 
window, and listened to the dripping of the 
icicles. At last he took a pen, and wrote as 
follows : 

“ Little Comrade, Little Playmate, 

I could not believe that you were really 
going. When you first said that you would soon 
be leaving, I listened with unconcern, because 
it did not seem possible that the time could 


A LOVE-LETTER, 


199 


come when we should not be together ; that the 
days would come and go, and that I should not 
know how you were ; whether you were better, 
and more hopeful about your life and your work, 
or whether the old misery of indifference and 
ill-health was still clinging to you ; whether 
your voice was strong as of one who had slept 
well and felt refreshed, or whether it was weak 
like that of one who had watched through the 
long night. 

“ It did not seem possible that such a time 
could come. Many cruel things have happened 
to me, as to scores of others, but this is the most 
cruel of all. Against my wish and against my 
knowledge, you have crept into my life as a 
necessity, and now I have to give you up. You 
are better, God bless you, and you go back to a 
fuller life, and to carry on your work, and to 
put to account those talents which no one 
realizes more than I do ; and as for myself, 
God help me, I am left to wither away. 

“You little one, you dear little one, I never 
wished to love you. I had never loved any one. 


«oo SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 


never drawn near to any one. I have lived 
lonely all my young life ; for I am only a young 
man yet. I said to myself time after time : 
‘ I will not love her. It will not do me any 
good, nor her any good.’ And then in my 
state of health, what right had I to think of 
marriage, and making a home for myself ? Of 
course that was out of the question. And then 
I thought, that because I was a doomed man, 
cut off from the pleasures which make a lovely 
thing of life, it did not follow that I might no^ 
love you in my own quiet way, hugging my 
secret to myself, until the love became all the 
greater because it was my secret. I reasoned 
about it too : it could not harm you that I loved 
you. No one could be the worse for being 
loved. So little by little I yielded myself this 
luxury ; and my heart once so dried up, began 
to flower again ; yes, little one, you will smile 
when I tell you that my heart broke out into 
flower. 

“ When I think of it all now, I am not sorry 
that I let myself go. At least I have learnt what 


A LOVE-LETTER. 


2or 

I knew nothing of before : now I understand what 
people mean when they say that love adds a 
dignity to life which nothing else can give. 
That dignity is mine now, nothing can take it 
from me ; it is my own. You are my very 
own ; I love everything about you. From the 
beginning I recognized that you were clever 
and capable. Though I often made fun of what 
you said, that was simply a way I had ; and 
when I saw you did not mind, I continued in 
that way, hoping always to vex you ; your good 
temper provoked me, because I knew that you 
made allowances for me being a Petershof in- 
valid. You would never have suffered a strong 
man to criticise you as I did ; you would have 
flown at him, for you are a feverish little child : 
not a quiet woolly lamb. At first I was wild 
that you should make allowances for me. And 
then I gave in, as weak men are obliged. When 
you came, I saw that your troubles and suffer- 
ings would make you bitter. Do you know who 
helped to cure you } It was /. I have seen 
that often before. That is the one little bit of 


202 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


good I have done in the world : I have helped 
to cure cynicism. You were shocked at the 
things I said, and you were saved. I did not 
save you intentionally, so I am not posing as a 
philanthropist. I merely mention that you 
came here hard, and you went back tender. 
That was partly because you have lived in the 
City of Suffering. Some people live there and 
learn nothing. But you would learn to feel 
only too much. I wish that your capacity for 
feeling were less ; but then you would not be 
yourself, your present self I mean, for you have 
changed even since I have known you. Every 
week you seemed to become more gentle. You 
thought me rough and gruff at parting, little 
comrade : I meant to be so. If you had only 
known, there was a whole world of tenderness 
for you in my heart. I could not trust myself to 
be tender to you ; you would have guessed my 
secret. And I wanted you to go away undis- 
turbed. You do not feel things lightly, and it 
was best for you that you should harden your 
heart against me. 


A LOVE-LETTER, 


203 


If you could harden your heart against me. 
But I am not sure about that. I believe that 
.... Ah, well, I ’m a foolish fellow : but 
some day, dear, I ’ll tell you what I think 
.... I have treasured many of your sayings 
in my memory. I can never be as though 
I had never known you. Many of your words 
I have repeated to myself afterwards until they 
seemed to represent my own thoughts. I spe- 
cially remember what you said about God hav- 
ing made us lonely, so that we might be obliged 
to turn to him. For we are all lonely, though 
some of us not quite so much as others. You 
yourself spoke often of being lonely. Oh, my 
own little one ! Your loneliness is nothing com- 
pared to mine. How often I could have told 
you that. 

I have never seen any of your work, but I 
think you have now something to say to others, 
and that you will say it well. And if you have 
the courage to be simple when it comes to the 
point, you will succeed. And I believe you will 
have the courage, I believe everything of you. 


ao4 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

“ But whatever you do or do not, you will 
always be the same to me : my own little one, 
my very own. I have been waiting all my life 
for you ; and I have given you my heart entire. 
If you only knew that, you could not call your- 
self lonely any more. If any one was ever 
loved it is you, dear heart. 

Do you remember how those peasants at 
the Gasthaus thought we were betrothed ? I 
thought that might annoy you ; and though I 
was relieved at the time, still, later on, I wished 
you had been annoyed. That would have 
shown that you were not indifferent. From 
that time my love for you grew apace. You 
must not mind me telling you so often ; I must 
go on telling you. Just think, dear, this is the 
first love-letter I have ever written : and every 
word of love is a whole world of love. I shall 
never call my life a failure now. I may have 
failed in everything else, but not in loving. Oh, 
little one, it can’t be that I am not to be with 
you, and not to have you for my own ! And 
yet how can that be ? It is not I who may hold 


A LOVE-LETTER, 


205 


you in my arms. Some strong man must love 
and wrap you round with tenderness and soft- 
ness. You little independent child, in spite of 
all your wonderful views and theories, you will 
soon be glad to lean on some one for comfort 
and sympathy. And then perhaps that troubled 
little spirit of yours may find its rest. Would 
to God I were that strong man ! 

But because I love you, my own little dar- 
ling, I will not spoil your life. I won’t ask you 
to give me even one thought. But if I believed 
that it were of any good to say a prayer, I 
should pray that you may soon find that strong 
man ; for it is not well for any of us to stand 
alone. There comes ^ime when the loneliness 
is more than we can bear. 

There is one thing I want you to know : 
indeed I am not the gruff fellow I have so often 
seemed. Do believe that. Do you remember 
how I told you that I dreamed of losing you ? 
And now the dream has come true. I am al- 
ways looking for you, and cannot find you. 

‘‘ You have been very good to me ; so patient, 


2o6 ships that pass IN THE NIGHT 


and genial, and frank. No one before has ever 
been so good. Even if I did not love you, I 
should say that. 

But I do love you, no one can take that from 
me : it is my own dignity, the crown of my life. 
Such a poor life . . . no, no, I won't say 

that now. I cannot pity myself now . . . 

no, I cannot ** 

The Disagreeable Man stopped writing, and 
the pen dropped on the table. 

He buried his tear-stained face in his hands. 
He cried his heart out, this Disagreeable Man. 

Then he took the letter which he had just been 
writing, and he tore it into fragments. 


END OF PART L 




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PART II. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE DUSTING OF THE BOOKS. 

JT was now more than three weeks since 
Bernardine’s return to London. She had 
gone back to her old home, at her uncle’s 
second-hand book-shop. She spent her time in 
dusting the books, and arranging them in some 
kind of order ; for old Zerviah Holme had 
ceased to interest himself much in his belong- 
ings, and sat in the little inner room reading as 
usual Gibbon’s History of Rome, Customers 
might please themselves about coming : Zerviah 
Holme had never cared about amassing money, 
and now he cared even less than before. A 
frugal breakfast, a frugal dinner, a box full of 


So8 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

snuff, and a shelf full of Gibbon were the old 
man’s only requirements : an undemanding life, 
and therefore a loveless one ; since the less we 
ask for, the less we get. 

When Malvina his wife died, people said : 
“ He will miss her.” 

But he did not seem to miss her : he took his 
breakfast, his pinch of snuff, his Gibbon, in pre- 
cisely the same way as before, and in the same 
quantities. 

When Bernardine first fell ill, people said : 

He will be sorry. He is fond of her in his 
own queer way.” 

But he did not seem to be sorry. He did not 
understand anything about illness. The thought 
of it worried him ; so he put it from him. He 
remembered vaguely that Bernardine’s father 
had suddenly become ill, that his powers had 
all failed him, and that he lingered on, just a 
wreck of humanity, and then died. That was 
twenty years ago. Then he thought of Bernar- 
dine, and said to hknself, “ History repeats it 
self ” That was all 


THE DUSTING OF THE BOOKS. 209 

Unkind? No ; for when it was told him that 
she must go away, he looked at her wonderingly, 
and then went out. It was very rarely that he 
went out. He came back with fifty pounds. 

“ When that is done," he told her, “ I can 
find more.” 

When she went away, people said ; “ He will 
be lonely.” 

But he did not seem to be lonely. They 
asked him once, and he said ; ** I always have 
Gibbon.” 

And when she came back, they said : “ He 
will be glad.” 

But her return seemed to make no difference 
to him. 

He looked at her in his usual sightless man- 
ner, and asked her what she intended to do. 

“ I shall dust the books,” she sdd. 

** Ah, I dare say they want it,” he remarked. 

“ I shall get a little teaching to do,” she con- 
tinued. And I shall take care of you.” 

Ah,” he said vaguely. He did not under- 
stand what she meant. She had never been 


210 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


very near to him, and he had never been very 
near to her. He had taken but little notice of 
her comings and goings ; she had either never 
tried to win his interest or had failed : probably 
the latter. Now she was going to take care of 
him. 

This was the home to which Bernardine had 
returned. She came back with many resolu- 
tions to help to make his old age bright. She 
looked back now, and saw how little she had 
given of herself to her aunt and her uncle. 
Aunt Malvina was dead, and Bernardine did not 
regret her. Uncle Zerviah was here still ; she 
would be tender with him, and win his affection. 
She thought she could not begin better than by 
looking after his books. Each one was dusted 
carefully. The dingy old shop was restored to 
cleanliness. Bernardine became interested in 
her task. “ I will work up the business,” she 
thought. She did not care in the least about 
the books ; she never looked into them except to 
clean them ; but she was thankful to have the 
occupation at hand : something to help her over 


THE DUSTING OF THE BOOKS. 211 


a difficult time. For the most trying part of an 
illness is when we are ill no longer ; when there 
is no excuse for being idle and listless ; when, 
in fact, we could work if we would : then is the 
moment for us to begin on anything which pre- 
sents itself, until we have the courage and the 
inclination to go back to our own particular 
work : that which we have longed to do, and 
about which we now care nothing. 

So Bernardine dusted books, and sometimes 
sold them. All the time she thought of the 
Disagreeable Man. She missed him in her life. 
She had never loved before, and she loved him. 
The forlorn figure rose before her, and her 
eyes filled with tears. Sometimes the tears fell 
on the books, and spotted them. 

Still, on the whole she was bright ; but she 
found things difficult. She had lost her old 
enthusiasms, and nothing yet had taken their 
place. She went back to the circle of her 
acquaintances, and found that she had slipped 
away from touch with them. Whilst she had 
been ill, they had been busily at work on mat* 


212 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


ters social and educational and political. She 
thought them hard, the women especially : they 
thought her weak. They were disappointed in 
her ; she was now looking for the more human 
qualities in them, and she, too, was disap- 
pointed. 

“ You have changed,” they said to her : “ but 
then of course you have been ill, have n’t you ? ” 

With these strong, active people, to be ill and 
useless is a reproach. And Bernardine felt it as 
such. But she had changed, and she herself 
perceived it in many ways. It was not that she 
was necessarily better, but that she was dif- 
ferent ; probably more human, and probably 
less self-confident. She had lived in a world of 
books, and she had burst through that bondage 
and come out into a wider and a freer land. 

New sorts of interests came into her life. 
What she had lost in strength, she had gained 
in tenderness. Her very manner was gentler, 
her mode of speech less assertive. At least, 
this was the criticism of those who had liked 
her but little before her illness. 


THE DUSTING OF THE BOOKS, 213 


** She has learnt,’* they said amongst them- 
selves. And they were not scholars. They 
knew. 

These, two or three of them, drew her nearer 
to them. She was alone there with the old 
man, and, though better, needed care. They 
mothered her as well as they could, at first 
timidly, and then with that sweet despotism 
which is for us all an easy yoke to bear. They 
were drawn to her as they had never been 
drawn before. They felt that she was no 
longer analyzing them, weighing them in her 
intellectual balance, and finding them wanting ; 
so they were free with her now, and revealed to 
her qualities at which she had never guessed 
before. 

As the days went on, Zerviah began to notice 
that things were somehow different. He found 
some flowers near his table. He was reading 
about Nero at the time ; but he put aside 
his Gibbon, and fondled the flowers instead. 
Bemardine did not know that. 

One morning when she was out, he went 


214 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


into the shop, and saw a great change there. 
Some one had been busy at work. The old 
man was pleased : he loved his books, though 
of late he had neglected them. 

She never used to take any interest in 
them,” he said to himself. “ I wonder why she 
does now ? ” 

He began to count upon seeing her. When 
she came back from her outings, he was glad. 
But she did not know. If he had given any 
sign of welcome to her during those first diffi- 
cult days, it would have been a great encourage- 
ment to her. 

He watched her feeding the sparrows. One 
day when she was not there, he went and did 
the same. Another day when she had forgotten, 
he surprised her by reminding her. 

“ You have forgotten to feed the sparrows,” 
he said. “ They must be quite hungry.” 

That seemed to break the ice a little. The 
next morning when she was arranging some 
books in the old shop, he came in and watched 
her. 


THE DUSTING OF THE BOOKS. 215 


** It is a comfort to have you,” he said. That 
was all he said, but Bernardine flushed with 
pleasure. 

“ I wish I had been more to you all these 
years,” she said gently. 

He did not quite take that in : and returned 
hastily to Gibbon. 

Then they began to stroll out together. They 
had nothing to talk about : he was not inter- 
ested in the outside world, and she was not 
interested in Roman history. But they were 
trying to get nearer to each other : they had 
lived years together, but they had never ad- 
vanced a step ; now they were trying, she con- 
sciously, he unconsciously. But it was a slow 
process, and pathetic, as everything human is. 

“ If we could only find some subject which 
we both liked,” Bernardine thought to herself. 
“ That might knit us together.” 

Well, they found a subject ; though, perhaps, 
it was an unlikely one. The cart-horses : those 
great, strong, patient toilers of the road attracted 
their attention, and after that no walk was with* 


2i6 ships that pass IN THE NIGHT 


out its pleasure or interest. The brewers* horses 
were the favourites, though there were others, 
too, which met with their approval. He began 
to know and recognize them. He was almost 
like a child in his new-found interest. On Whit 
Monday they both went to the cart-horse parade 
in Regent’s Park. They talked about the enjoy- 
ment for days afterwards. 

“Next year,” he told her, “we must sub- 
scribe to the fund, even if we have to sell a 
book.” 

He did not like to sell his books : he parted 
with them painfully, as some people part with 
their illusions. 

Bernardine bought a paper for herself every 
day ; but one evening she came in without one. 
She had been seeing after some teaching, and 
had without any difficulty succeeded in getting 
some temporary light work at one of the high 
schools. She forgot to buy her newspaper. 

The old man noticed this. He put on his 
shabby felt hat, and went down the street, and 
brought in a copy of the Daily News, 

\ 


THE DUSTING OF THE BOOKS. 217 

don’t remember what you like, but will 
this do ? ” he asked. 

He was quite proud of himself for showing 
her this attention, almost as proud as the Dis- 
agreeable Man, when he did something kind 
and thoughtful. 

Bernardine thought of him, and the tears 
came into her eyes at once. When did she not 
think of him ? Then she glanced at the front 
sheet, and in the death column her eye rested 
on his name : and she read that Robert Allitsen’s 
mother had passed away. So the Disagreeable 
Man had won his freedom at last. His words 
echoed back to her : 

“ But I know how to wait : if I have not 
learnt anything else, I have learnt how to 
wait. And some day I shall be free. And 
then 


CHAPTER II. 


BERNARDINE BEGINS HER BOOK. 

FTER the announcement of Mrs. Allitsen’s 



death, Bernardine lived in a misery of sus- 
pense. Every day she scanned the obituary, 
fearing to find the record of another death, fear- 
ing and yet wishing to know. The Disagreeable 
Man had yearned for his freedom these many 
years, and now he was at liberty to do what he 
chose with his poor life. It was of no value to 
him. Many a time she sat and shuddered. 
Many a time she began to write to him. Then 
she remembered that after all he had cared 
nothing for her companionship. He would not 
wish to hear from her. And besides, what had 
she to say to him ? 

A feeling of desolation came over her. It was 
not enough for her to take care of the old man 


BERNARDINE BEGINS HER BOOK, 219 

who was drawing nearer to her every day ; nor 
was it enough for her to dust the books, and 
serve any chance customers who might look in. 
In the midst of her trouble she remembered 
some of her old ambitions ; and she turned to 
them for comfort as we turn to old friends. 

“ I will try to begin my book,” she said to her- 
self. “ If I can only get interested in it, I shall 
forget my anxiety.” 

But the love of her work had left her. Ber- 
nardine fretted. She sat in the old book-shop, 
her pen unused, her paper uncovered. She was 
very miserable. 

Then one evening when she was feeling that 
it was of no use trying to force herself to begin 
her book, she took her pen suddenly, and wrote 
the following prologue. 


CHAPTER III. 


FAILURE AND SUCCESS ! A PROLOGUE. 

CAILURE and Success passed away from 
^ Earth, and found themselves in a Foreign 
Land. Success still wore her laurel-wreath 
which she had won on Earth. There was a 
look of ease about her whole appearance ; and 
there was a smile of pleasure and satisfaction on 
her face, as though she knew she had done well 
and had deserved her honours. 

Failure’s head was bowed ; no laurel-wreath 
encircled it. Her face was wan, and pain- 
engraven. She had once been beautiful and 
hopeful, but she had long since lost both hope 
and beauty. They stood together, these two, 
waiting for an audience with the Sovereign of 
the Foreign Land. An old grey-haired man 
came to them and asked their names. 


FAILURE AND SUCCESS, 


221 


“ I am Success,’* said Success, advancing a step 
forward, and smiling at him, and pointing to her 
laurel-wreath. 

He shook his head. 

“Ah,” he said, “do not be too confident 
Very often things go by opposites in this land. 
What you call Success, we often call Failure ; 
what you call Failure, we call Success. Do 
you see those two men waiting there ? The one 
nearer to us was thought to be a good man in 
your world ; the other was generally accounted 
bad. But here we call the bad man good, and 
the good man bad. That seems strange to you. 
Well, then, look yonder. You considered that 
statesman to be sincere ; but we say he was in- 
sincere. We chose as our poet-laureate a man 
at whom your world scoffed. Ay, and those 
flowers yonder ; for us they have a fragrant 
charm ; we love to see them near us. But you 
do not even take the trouble to pluck them from 
the hedges where they grow in rich profusion. 
So, you see, what we value as a treasure, you do 
not value at all.” 


t22 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 


Then he turned to Failure. 

“ And your name ? ” he asked kindly, though 
indeed he must have known it. 

“ I am Failure/* she said sadly. 

He took her by the hand, 

** Come, now. Success,** he said to her ; ** let 
me lead you into the Presence-Chamber.** 

Then she who had been called Failure, and 
was now called Success, lifted up her bowed 
head, and raised her weary frame, and smiled at 
the music of her new name. And with that 
smile she regained her beauty and her hope. 
And hope having come back to her, all her 
strength returned. 

“ But what of her ? ** she asked regretfully of 
the old grey-haired man ; “ must she be left ? ** 
^*She will learn,** the old man whispered. 
She is learning already. Come, now : we must 
not linger.** 

So she of the new name passed into the 
Presence-Chamber. 

But the Sovereign said ; 

“ The world needs you, dear and honoured 


FAILURE AND SUCCESS. 




worker. You know your real name : do not 
heed what the world may call you. Go back 
and work, but take with you this time uncon- 
querable hope." 

So she went back and worked, taking with her 
unconquerable hope, and the sweet remembrance 
of the Sovereign’s words, and the gracious music 
of her Real Name. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE DISAGREEABLE MAN GIVES UP HIS 
FREEDOM. 

'Y'HE morning afterBernardine began her book, 
she and old Zerviah were sitting together 
in the shop. He had come from the little inner 
room where he had been reading Gibbon for the 
last two hours. He still held the volume in his 
hand ; but he did not continue reading, he 
watched her arranging the pages of a dilapi- 
dated book. 

Suddenly she looked up from her work. 

“Uncle Zerviah,” she said brusquely, “ you 
have lived through a long life, and must have 
passed through many different experiences. 
Was there ever a time when you cared for people 
rather than books ? ” 

“ Yes,” he answered a little uneasily. He 


GIVES UP HIS FREEDOM. 


235 


was not accustomed to have questions asked of 
him. 

** Tell me about it,” she said. 

“It was long ago,” he said half dreamily, 
“long before I married Malvina. And she died. 
That was all.” 

“ That was all,” repeated Bernardine, looking 
at him wonderingly. Then she drew nearer to him. 

“And you have loved, Uncle Zerviah ? And 
you were loved ? ” 

“ Yes, indeed,” he answered softly. 

“ Then you would not laugh at me if I were 
to unburden my heart to you ? ” 

For answer, she felt the touch of his old 
hand on her head. And thus encouraged, she 
told him the story of the Disagreeable Man. 
She told him how she had never before loved 
any one until she loved the Disagreeable Man. 

It was all very quietly told, in a simple and 
dignified manner : nevertheless, for all that, it 
was an unburdening of her heart ; her listener 
being an old scholar who had almost forgotten 
the very name of love. 


2a6 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT, 

She was still talking, and he was still listen* 
ing, when the shop door creaked. Zerviah 
crept quietly away, and Bernardine looked up. 

The Disagreeable Man stood at the counter, 

** You little thing,” he said, I have come 
to see you. It is eight years since I was in 
England.” 

Bernardine leaned over the counter. 

** And you ought not to be here now,” she 
Said, looking at his thin face. He seemed to 
have shrunk away since she had last seen him. 

“ I am free to do what I choose,” he said. 
“ My mother is dead.” 

** I know,” Bernardine said gently. ** But 
you are not free.” 

He made no answer to that, but slipped into 
the chair. 

You look tired,” he said. ** What have you 
been doing ? ” 

“ I have been dusting the books,” she 
answered, smiling at him. “ You remember 
you told me I should be content to do that. 
The very oldest and shabbiest have had my 


GIVES UP ms FREEDOM, 


*27 


tenderest care. I found the shop in disorder. 
You see it now.” 

“ I should not call it particularly tidy now,” 
he said grimly. Still, I suppose you have 
done your best. Well, and what else ? ” 

“ I have been trying to take care of my old 
uncle,” she said. “We are just beginning to 
understand each other a little. And he is 
beginning to feel glad to have me. When I 
first discovered that, the days became easier to 
me. It makes us into dignified persons when 
we find out that there is a place for us to fill.” 

“ Some people never find it out,” he said. 

“ Probably, like myself, they went on for a 
long time, without caring,” she answered. “ I 
think I have had more luck than I deserve.” 

“Well,” said the Disagreeable Man. “And 
you are glad to take up your life again ? ” 

“ No,” she said quietly. “ I have not got as 
far as that yet. But I believe that after some 
little time I may be glad ; I hope so, I am 
working for that. Sometimes I begin to have a 
keen interest in everything. I wake up with 


228 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 

an enthusiasm. After about two hours I have 
lost it again.” 

“ Poor little child,” he said tenderly. “ I, too, 
know what that is. But you will get back to glad- 
ness : not the same kind of satisfaction as before; 
but some other satisfaction, that compensation 
which is said to be included in the scheme.” 

“And I have begun my book,” she said, 
pointing to a few sheets lying on the counter ; 
that is to say, I have written the Prologue.” 

“ Then the dusting of the books has not 
sufficed ? ” he said, scanning her curiously. 

“ I wanted not to think of myself,” Ber- 
nardine said. “ Now that I have begun it, I 
shall enjoy going on with it. I hope it will be 
a companion to me.” 

“ I wonder whether you will make a failure 
or a success of it ? ” he remarked. “ I wish I 
could have seen.” 

“So you will,” she said. “I shall finish it, 
and you will read it in Petershof.” 

“ I shall not be going back to Petershof,” he 
said. “ Why should I go there now ? ” 


G/FES UP HIS FREEDOM. 


22g 


** For the same reason that you went there 
eight years ago,” she said. 

“I went there for my mother's sake,” he 
said. 

“ Then you will go there now for my sake,” 
she said deliberately. 

He looked up quickly. 

“ Little Bernardine,” he cried, ** my little 
Bernardine — is it possible that you care what 
becomes of me ? ” 

She had been leaning against the counter, and 
now she raised herself, and stood erect, a proud, 
dignified little figure. 

“Yes, I do care,” she said simply, and with 
true earnestness. “ I care with all my heart. 
And even if I did not care, you know you would 
not be free. No one is free. You know that 
better than I do. We do not belong to our- 
selves . there are countless people depending on 
us, people whom we have never seen, and whom 
we never shall see. What we do, decides what 
they will be.” 

He still did not speak. 


230 SHIPS THAT PASS IH THE NIGHT, 


‘‘But it is not for those others that I plead/* 
she continued. “ I plead for myself. I can*l 
spare you, indeed, indeed I can’t spare 
you ! ** 

Her voice trembled, but she went on bravely. 

“ So you will go back to the mountains,” she 
said. “You will live out your life like a man. 
Others may prove themselves cowards, but the 
Disagreeable Man has a better part to play.” 

He still did not speak. Was it that he could 
not trust himself to words ? But in that brief 
time, the thoughts which passed through his 
mind were such as to overwhelm him. A pic- 
ture rose up before him : a picture of a man and 
woman leading their lives together, each happy 
in the other’s love ; not a love born of fancy, 
but a love based on comradeship and true un- 
derstanding of the soul. The picture faded, 
and the Disagreeable Man raised his eyes and 
looked at the little figure standing near him. 

“Little child, little child,” he said wearily, 
“since it is your wish, I will go back to the 
mountains,” 


GIVES UP HIS FREEDOM, 


231 


Then he bent over the counter, and put his 
hand on hers. 

“ I will come and see you to-morrow,” he 
said “ I think there are one or two things I 
want to say to you.” 

The next moment he was gone. 

In the afternoon of that same day Bernardine 
went to the City. She was not unhappy : she 
had been making plans for herself. She would 
work hard, and fill her life as full as possible. 
There should be no room for unhealthy thought. 
She would go and spend her holidays in 
Petershof. There would be pleasure in that for 
him and for her. She would tell him so to- 
morrow. She knew he would be glad. 

Above all,” she said to herself, “ there shall 
be no room for unhealthy thought. I must 
cultivate my garden.” 

That was what she was thinking of at four in 
the afternoon : how she could best cultivate her 
garden. 

At five she was lying unconscious in the acci- 
dent-ward of the New Hospital : she had been 


232 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT. 

knocked down by a waggon, and terribly 
injured. 

“ She will not recover,” the Doctor said to 
the nurse. “You see she is sinking rapidly. 
Poor little thing ! ” 

At six she regained consciousness, and opened 
her eyes. The nurse bent over her. Then she 
whispered : 

“Tell the Disagreeable Man how I wish 
I could have seen him to-morrow. We had so 
much to say to each other. And now ” 

The brown eyes looked at the nurse so en- 
treatingly. It was a long time before she could 
forget the pathos of those brown eyes. 

A few minutes later, she made another sign as 
though she wished to speak. Nurse Katharine 
bent nearer. Then she whispered : 

“Tell the Disagreeable Man to go back to 
the mountains, and begin to build his bridge; 
it must be strong and ” 

Bernardine died. 


CHAPTER V. 


THE BUILDING OF THE BRIDGE. 


J^OBERT ALLITSEN came to the old book* 
shop to see Zerviah Holme before return- 
ing to the mountains. He found him reading 
Gibbon. These two men had stood by Ber- 
nardino’s grave. 

I was beginning to know her,” the old man 
said. 

“ I have always known her,” the young man 
said. cannot remember a time when she 
has not been part of my life.” 

“ She loved you,” Zerviah said. She was 
telling me so the very morning when you 
came.” 

Then, with a tenderness which was almost 
foreign to him, Zerviah told Robert Allitsen 
how Bemardine had opened her heart to him. 


234 SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT 


She had never loved any one before : but she 
had loved the Disagreeable Man. 

I did not love him because I was sorry for 
him,” she had said. “ I loved him for himself.” 

Those were her very words. 

“ Thank you,” said the Disagreeable Man. 
** And God bless you for telling me.” 

Then he added : 

“ There were some few loose sheets of paper 
on the counter. She had begun her book. May 
I have them ? ” 

Zerviah placed them in his hand. 

‘‘And this photograph,” the old man said 
kindly. “ I will spare it for you.” 

The picture of the little thin eager face was 
folded up with the papers. 

The two men parted. 

Zerviah Holme went back to his Roman his- 
tory. The Disagreeable Man went back to the 
mountains : to live his life out there, and to 
build his bridge, as we all do, whether con^ 
sciously or unconsciously. If it breaks down, 
we build it again, 


THE BUILDING OF THE BRIDGE, 235 

^‘Wewill build it stronger this time,” we say 
to ourselves. 

So we begin once more. 

We are very patient. 

And meanwhile the years pass. 




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